Two-thirds of JD(S) candidates lost deposits in Assembly polls

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: An analytical report by the Election Commission (EC) disclosed that about 66 per cent or 138 of the 209 JD(S) candidates in the May Assembly elections lost their deposits.

The Representation of People’s Act 1951 mandates that every candidate submit a security deposit to ensure that only serious contenders enter the fray.

For the Assembly elections, the amount is Rs 10,000. If the candidate gets less than a sixth of the vote, the deposit won’t be returned. It is to be noted that the JD(S)’ traditional stronghold – the Old Mysuru region – is home to 67 seats where the regional outfit still finished as the second best party.

Most of the 19 seats they won came from the very same Vokkaliga heartland, which comprises districts such as Bengaluru Urban and Rural, Ramanagara, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Hassan and Mandya.

The party did fare quite poorly in other regions where they have little presence despite JD(S) legislature party leader HD Kumaraswamy taking his Pancharatna Rath Yatre to more than 100 constituencies.

Their seat tally dipped from 37 in 2018 and vote share plummeted from 18.3 per cent in the previous polls to 13.3 per cent. JD(S) polled 15 lakh less votes than they did in 2018.

Congress gained 28 lakh votes while BJP won nine lakh more votes. Exodus to Congress It is clear that Congress won partly because they finished as the single largest party in Old Mysuru at the expense of the JD(S) while BJP is still number three in the southern region of the state.

Eventual Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar even said in the lead up to the polls that “to win the state, one should first win the fort (Old Mysuru)”.

Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Congress chief, appears to have successfully appealed to fellow Vokkaligas to vote to make him the CM. Muslims from the region also appear to have shifted in great part from JD(S) to Congress.

The two communities make up the largest support bases of JD(S) in Old Mysuru. Notably, Congress won nearly every other region while Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts were the only exceptions.

Poaching spectre plagues party Shivakumar and CM Siddaramaiah are reportedly trying to engineer the defection of two-thirds of JD(S) MLAs (at least 13).

This would enable the rebels to claim the party symbol and avoid by-polls. Congress has a majority in the Assembly with 136 seats and has no need of additional MLAs. Something similar had occurred in 2017 when Siddaramaiah during his first term as CM had engineered defections of seven MLAs.

Even then Congress had a simple majority. JD(S) also suffered in July 2019 when its lawmakers were poached along with those of the Congress in the infamous “Operation Kamala” which toppled the Kumaraswamyled coalition government.

Shivakumar took the reins as the president of the party’s state unit in March 2020 and later poached Vokkaliga legislators like Arsikere MLA Shivalinge Gowda and Gubbi MLA SR Srinivas.