All parties confident of victory in Kadur bypoll

Though earlier it was said that there will be pro-Congress sympathy wave in the election, the scenario has been changed during the campaign. Congress candidate K M Kemparaju is the brother of former MLA K M Krishnamoorthi, whose death paved way for bypoll in Kadur. However, a sympathy wave, which the Congress workers were expecting, was not seen as expected.

JD(S) candidate Y S V Datta could win the confidence of voters in the constituency. Voters feel that Datta is an easily accessible political leader compared to others. However, it is not predictable whether voters will chose Datta or not.

However, BJP candidate Dr Y C Vishwanath is facing the election with his soft and gentle approach. Party leaders too bank on good qualities of Vishwanath and expect a pro-BJP wave in the election. BJP State President K S Eshwarappa too had declared in a campaign programme that the party has already bagged victory and the election will be held only to decide the runner up.

Though workers of all the three political parties are striving for the victory of their party candidates, voters still do not disclose their stand and people will have to wait till the end to know the outcome.

The Kadur constituency has a total of 1,76,470 voters including 90,515 male and 85,955 female. The total number of polling booths is 226.

Caste factor

Lingayat community, which is the majority in the constituency, has about 43,000 voters in the list. The second largest community is Kurubas, who comprise nearly 32,000 voters. Voters from Uppara community constitute 18,000 while the number of Muslim voters is 14,000. Banjara (Lambani) community has 12,000 voters, Telugu Gowda comprise 10,000 voters and 37,470 voters belong to various other categories.

In 13 Assembly elections held in the constituency between 1952 and 2008, Kurubas had played a key role in the victory of candidates  nine times. Candidates of Lingayat community could win the seat only four times.

Y S V Datta, who belong to upper caste, had broken all caste-based calculations by bagging 35,874 votes in the 2008 election. In fact, the total number of Brahmin voters is only 1,300.