CM's whirlwind tour fails to revive Cong prospects in Mysuru

 Is Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s charisma on the wane? Did ailing Revenue and District In-charge Minister V Srinivas Prasad fail to effectively campaign on behalf of the party nominees, that collectively impacted the party’s not-so-good performance in the district?

These are the questions asked by party workers, while pondering over the Zilla and Taluk Panchayat elections, the results of which were announced on Tuesday.

Most importantly, BJP’s victory in three ZP constituencies under Varuna Assembly constituency (Varuna, Hadinaru and Tagadur) represented by Siddaramaiah, has come as a shocker to the party leaders. According to sources, Siddaramaiah who has his coterie of followers, especially in the district, who double up as poll managers, had alerted about the party’s dwindling prospects in his native. Moreover, a section of Congress leaders, considered as old guards of the party had remained peeved, as Siddaramaiah’s followers were pitted in the place of senior leaders and ticket aspirants.

The intelligence reports too had prognosticated the same (about Congress’ poor prospects), forcing the chief minister himself to launch a campaign tour in Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts from February 13 to 18. Interestingly, though the party continued to farewell in Chamarajanagar district (in ZP), winning a majority of seats, it was not the same in Mysuru, as the party could win only 22 seats in the 49-member ZP.
Prior to his campaign tour in Mysuru, the chief minister had also launched the divisional-level ‘Gram Swaraj’ meeting from Mysuru, covering all the eight revenue districts under Mysuru region.

Interestingly, the chief minister, during his itinerary in Mysuru, also campaigned at Udbur (part of Jayapura ZP seat), Doora (Kadakola ZP seat) and Siddalingapura (TP seat), all under Chamundeshwari constituency and Varuna (Varuna ZP seat) under Varuna Assembly constituency represented by himself. And, the party has failed to win all the aforementioned seats. JD(S) nominees have won Jayapura and Kadakola while BJP sprung a surprise at Varuna, courtesy JD(S) that had not fielded its candidate with the sole intention of teaching a fitting lesson to the Congress.

In Siddalingapura TP seat, JD(S) nominee has won. Similar is the outcome in Periyapatna, where Siddaramaiah had addressed a public meeting. Congress MLA K Venka- tesh’s son Nithin Venkatesh has lost to JD(S) nominee by a wafer-thin margin of eight votes.