Polling to Davangere South and Bagalkot byelections concludes peacefully

Voting in the bypolls to Davangere South and Bagalkot Assembly constituencies that concluded on Thursday late evening recorded a poll percentage of 68.55 per cent and 68.70per cent respectively. It was 69.48 per cent and 69.46 per cent in the 2023 polls.

While, polling remained incident free, unverified videos of men distributing money to voters near polling booths have gone viral leading to BJP and SDPI accusing the Congress of misusing the “money and muscle power” to win the bypolls. They have demanded the election commission of prompt action.

The bypolls, necessitated by the demise of sitting Congress MLAs Shamanur Shivashankarappa and H Y Meti, saw a high-decibel campaign with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and senior ministers literally camping in Bagalkot till the last day of outdoor campaigning.

The ruling Congress hopes to retain both the seats while the BJP wants to humble the ruling party, which has fielded Samarth Mallikarjun (Lingayat), incumbent’s grandson in D’gere South, and Umesh Meti (Kuruba), incumbent’s son in Bagalkot, continuing its practice of nominating kin of deceased leaders. The BJP has chosen a party worker Srinivas T Dasakariappa (ST) and former MLA Veeranna Charantimath (Lingayat), respectively.

In Davangere South, the Congress faces the prospect of division of the decisive Muslim votes (around 80,000) after denying a ticket to the community. The resentment was obvious when Housing minister Zameer Ahmed Khan avoided campaigning fearing a backlash from the community.

Anis Pasha from KPCC legal Cell admitted that some young Muslim voters might have voted for the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). Also, the Congress fears the BJP could split the Ahinda vote too with its nominee belonging to the decisive ST community. If BJP makes the cut, it will end the decades-long dominance of the Shamanur family.

While Shivashankarappa had won by a margin of 27,888 votes, the slow pace of voting in bypolls made Congress panic and release a poster of Samarth urging voters to come out and vote.

Meanwhile, Bagalkot will be a test of Siddaramaiah’s popularity as the uncontested Ahinda leader as the previous winning margin was only 5,878 votes. A consolidation of Ahinda and Muslim votes, while breaching the Lingayat vote bank of the BJP, has been the Congress’ strategy.

The bypoll result has little impact on the government’s stability but it is a prestige battle for the top leaders as a win would help Siddaramaiah, locked in a power tussle with his deputy and KPCC chief D K Shivakumar, to establish his dominance in the party and the government. A BJP victory bolsters state BJP chief B Y Vijayendra’s chances of leading the party in 2028 too. The BJP put up a united fight with former chief minister B S Yediyurappa leading the campaign.

The bypoll results on May 4, could be a referendum to the Congress government’s performance and perhaps a precursor to the 2028 Assembly elections too.