Kids busy doing groundwork in dad seats

Varuna Congress MLA Yatindra Siddaramaiah, son of Siddaramaiah is busy collecting a feedback from voters of Kolar in the wake of his father planning to contest from this constituency and has visited Kolar more than once

Shyam Sundar Vattam I NT

Bengaluru: While their fathers are busy lobbying for tickets for the coming Assembly elections, their sons are camping in the constituencies of their dads, renewing contacts with the electorate after a gap of five years. This trend is more visible in the Congress party thanks to the stiff competition for tickets in the wake of surveys predicting the party returning to power.

Varuna Congress MLA Yatindra Siddaramaiah, son of former CM Siddaramaiah is busy collecting a feedback from voters of Kolar in the wake of his father planning to contest from this constituency. He has already visited the constituency more than once to study the ground reality and interact with voters to understand the undercurrents and strategies of the ruling BJP or Janata Dal (Secular).

Dr. Yatindra has been calling on the seers to know their stand if his father contests from Kolar constituency. Similarly, another senior Cong ress leader, Dr.H.C.Mahadevappa’s son, Sunil Bose is virtually camping in T.Narasipur (Reserved) constituency to meet voters and re-establish contacts.

The former minister had lost to Ashwin Kumar of the JD(S) in the 2018 polls and that defeat has made him depute his son to set things right in the constituency before he decides to contest. He lost the previous election as he wanted to field his son, Sunil from T.Narasipur and contest from Nanjangud (reserved).

But the high command stuck to the one family-one ticket norm and Dr.Mahadevappa contested from T.Narasipur only to lose heavily to a novice. If this is the case of the Congress Party, the children of JD(S) MLAs are also spending more time in the constituencies of their fathers.

Jayanth, son of K.R.Nagar JD(S) MLA and former minister, Sa.Ra.Mahesh is camping in the constituency visiting villages and meeting voters while his father is busy in the Pancha Mantra rally being undertaken by former CM and JD(S) leader, H.D. Kumaraswamy. Mahesh is sure of getting the ticket as there is no alternative to him.

But the defeated Congress candidate, Ravi has already started a people contact programme and is playing the sympathy card. This has become a big headache for Mahesh since he had won the 2018 Assembly polls by a narrow margin.

Similarly, Prasanna, son of Periyapatna JD(S) MLA K. Mahadev is also camping in his father’s constituency and kicked off an informal campaign much before the declaration of the election date. The victory of Mahadev in the 2018 election was quite surprising because K. Venkatesh of the Congress Party had been winning the election without any strong opposition.

But he became complacent and voters taught him a lesson. In Chamundeshwari Constituency, G.D.Harish Gowda, son of former minister, G.T.Deve Gowda, is looking after the constituency of his father in the last month ever since Siddaramaiah vowed to defeat his father at any cost in the coming election.

So, Deve Gowda has deployed his son to meet villagers on his behalf as it would be difficult for him to visit all the villages after the Assembly election dates are announced. Harish Gowda has been promised a ticket from Hunsur due to which he is shuttling between Hunsur and Chamundeshwari constituencies.