With the countdown for the April 9 Gundlupet by-poll already begun, political circles have begun to bet on who would win the  April 9 by-poll and thus become the only fourth person to be MLA of the Constituency in over 6 decades.

Gundlupet Constituency which started as a twin-member Constituency in 1952, became a single member constituency in 1957, with K.S. Nagarathnamma representing the constituency for 7 terms with only a single break in 1978, when she lost to H.K. Shivarudrappa who contested as an Independent.

Incidentally, Shivarudrappa was the first MLA from Gundlupet, sharing the seat with Siddaiah (Kumaraiah) when it was a twin member constituency in 1952.

After Shivarudrappa and Nagarathnamma, H.S. Mahadevaprasad represented the constituency for five successive terms from 1994 till his death in Jan. 2017.

Nagarathnamma won in 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1983, 1985 and 1989. While she won contesting as an independent candidate in 1957 and 1962, she was elected on a Congress ticket in 1967, 1972, 1983, 1985 and 1989.

Nagarathnamma passed away in 1993 and Mahadevaprasad won all the subsequent elections. While Prasad won as a Janata Dal candidate in 1994, he won on a JD(U) ticket in 1999, on JD(S) ticket in 2004 and as a Congress candidate in 2008 and 2013.

But his untimely demise on Jan. 3, 2017, has resulted in the bypoll. Late Minister Prasad’s wife Dr. Geetha Mahadevaprasad is contesting as the Congress candidate in the Apr. 9 by-poll and all eyes are on who will represent on constituency next.

C.S. Niranjan Kumar contesting as the BJP candidate, in posing a stiff challenge to the Congress, which is going all out to retain the seat. In any case, Gundlupet would only see a fourth person as MLA in its nearly 7-decade history of electoral history.

The fourth person who is going to represent the constituency will be known only when the by-poll vote counting will be taken up on Apr. 13.