Mysore/Mysuru: KPCC Working President R. Dhruvanarayan who passed away this morning, was one of the prominent Dalit leaders of the party in this region.

A native of Heggavadi village in Chamarajanagar taluk, Dhruvanarayan was born on July. 31, 1961 to Rangaswamy and Siddamma couple. He was a B.Sc. graduate in Agriculture and did his M.Sc. in Agriculture, from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.

In a political career spanning three decades, Dhruvanarayan, who forayed into politics as a staunch follower of another prominent Congress leader late M. Rajashekaramurthy, switched over to BJP for some time, during the Assembly elections held in 1999. He also made an electoral debut and unsuccessfully contested from BJP against Janata Dal (United) candidate A.R. Krishnamurthy from Santhemarahalli (SC reserve constituency) in 1999.

 In the subsequent Assembly elections held in 2004, Dhruvanarayan contested as Congress candidate and won against his traditional rival A.R. Krishnamurthy, the JD(S) candidate then, by a margin of record one vote, that still hogs limelight, whenever there is a mention of Assembly elections here. 

 Later, when the constituency was merged with the newly carved out Kollegal (SC Reserve) segment, he was re-elected in 2008. But when the parliamentary elections were announced in 2009, Dhruvanarayan became the party’s choice to contest the election considering his clean image. He quit as an MLA and successfully contested the parliamentary election from Chamarajanagar (SC Reserve) Lok Sabha constituency.

 Interestingly, in all the aforementioned elections including Assembly and Parliamentary, A.R. Krishnamurthy was the main rival (as BJP candidate in Lok Sabha polls), who failed to avenge the humiliation of shocking defeat suffered at the hands of Dhruvanarayan. (Now, Krishnamurthy is back in the Congress fold and is a strong contender for the party ticket from the Kollegal seat again).

 Dhruvanarayan won the 2009 LS polls by a margin of 4,002 votes and 2014 polls by a record margin of 1,41,182 votes.