Top leaders of Congress and BJP are literally sweating it out for one-upmanship in the forthcoming by-election to Gundlupet Assembly (General) constituency that will be held on Apr. 9 along with Nanjangud (Reserved) constituency. Even the hot sun and a humid weather do not matter for campaigners as both the parties have taken it as a prestige issue.  

Though seven candidates are in the fray for Gundlupet seat, the fight is between Congress candidate Geetha Mahadevaprasad (M.C. Mohanakumari) and BJP’s C.S. Niranjan Kumar.

Both the candidates are banking on sympathy votes to emerge victorious.

While Geetha Mahadevaprasad is banking on sympathy votes owing to demise of her husband and former Minister H.S. Mahadevaprasad who represented the constituency for five consecutive terms, Niranjan Kumar is expecting people to vote for him this time for having lost the elections in the constituency twice.

The Congress, which considers Chamarajanagar as its fortress, has not taken the election lightly

Chief Minister Siddharamaiah and his Cabinet colleagues have been campaigning in the constituency to convince voters to support their candidate.

The BJP, which has also taken the election seriously, has been sending its top Lingayat leaders including State BJP President B.S. Yeddyurappa and V. Somanna to cash-in on the majority Lingayat votes.

The entry of former Union Minister S.M. Krishna has also boosted the morale of BJP leaders. Krishna took part in a party convention yesterday and the event witnessed huge support from Gundlupet residents.

Though the number of Vokkaligas is less in Gundlupet, the BJP wants to secure their votes projecting S.M. Krishna, a Vokkaliga strongman.

Meanwhile, the Congress party is fighting the elections with development works done by late Mahadevaprasad and also   the development works undertaken by the Siddharamaiah government.

There are a total of 2,00,862 voters with 1,00,144 males, 1,00,701 females and others 17. There are 250 polling booths and among them 33 are sensitive, 39 are hyper-sensitive, 17 remote area polling booths and 161 normal polling booths.