Mysuru: With JD(S) conceding the Mysuru-Lok Sabha seat to its alliance partner Congress, the battle lines have been drawn for the Mysuru-Kodagu LS seat, which is currently represented by Pratap Simha of BJP.
Pratap Simha, who was a little known face when he entered the fray in 2014, went on to win the seat defeating A.H. Vishwanath who was then with the Congress.
Simha is most likely to be renominated by the BJP, which is expected to release its list of candidates in a couple of days.
As far as Congress is concerned, former MP C.H. Vijayashankar is the most likely candidate, as he has the strong backing of CLP leader and former CM Siddharamaiah, who hails from Mysuru. Incidentally, Vijayashanakar had won twice on a BJP ticket in 1998 and 2004. But in 2014, the BJP fielded him from Hassan, while bringing Pratap Simha to contest from Mysuru.
Vijayashankar quit BJP ahead of last year’s Assembly elections and joined Congress. In 2014 LS Polls, Simha secured 5,03,908 votes, followed by A.H. Vishwanath of Congress who bagged 4,72,300 votes and Chandrashekaraiah of JD(S) who managed 1,38,587 votes. There were 13 other candidates in the fray, including from AAP and BSP.
Pratap Simha, who won by a margin of over 30,000 votes, had bagged 43.45 percent of the votes polled then, with Vishwanath getting 40.72 percent and Chandrashekaraiah 11.95 percent.
The Mysuru-Kodagu LS constituency has eight Assembly segments — NR, KR, Chamaraja, Chamundeshwari, Periyapatna and Hunsur in Mysuru and Madikeri and Virajpet in Kodagu. Out of the eight Assembly segments, four are currently held by the BJP (KR, Chamaraja, Madikeri and Virajpet), while JD(S) has three Legislators (Periyaptna, Hunsur and Chamundeshwari) and Congress just one (NR).
With Congress-JD(S) signing seat-sharing pact, BJP will have a tough task on its hand to retain this important LS seat. But the Lok Sabha polls are entirely different from Assembly polls and BJP is hoping that the electorate will retain its faith on the party this time too. Incidentally, JD(S) which has a strong voter base in the district, has never won the LS polls.
Now that the Congress has got the seat as per the seat-sharing deal, it is to be seen whether JD(S) votes will get transferred to Congress. As far as BJP is concerned, the party is relying on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the work done by MP Pratap Simha over the past five years.
In the past, Congress has won 13 times and BJP three times here. In any case, it will be a keen contest this time, with Pratap Simha likely to take on Vijayashankar of Congress.
This post was published on March 20, 2019 6:36 pm