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In a first, BJP bags Mysuru local seat after Cong-JD(S) talks fail
According to people aware of the developments, the Congress and JD(S) were holding talks till just 15 minutes before the elections. But the two parties were not able to find a middle ground, costing them the control over the city administration.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday managed to wrest control of the Mysuru city corporation for the first time in its history after talks between the Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress collapsed at the last moment. With this, BJP’s corporator Sunanda Palanethra became the mayor of the heritage city.
According to people aware of the developments, the Congress and JD(S) were holding talks till just 15 minutes before the elections. But the two parties were not able to find a middle ground, costing them the control over the city administration.
The Congress stormed out of the council hall, sloganeering against the JD(S) after negotiations and a fragile alliance between the two fell apart.
“Until 11.45 am we were talking to the JD(S) and the elections were at 12 pm,” R Dhruvanarayana, a Congress leader and former member of Parliament from Chamarajanagar, told Hindustan Times.
The BJP has 25 votes that includes 22 corporators, one MLA and one MP while the JD(S) had 21 votes which includes 17 corporators, one MLA and three MLCs. The Congress has 21 votes that includes one MLA.
Former chief minister BS Yediyurappa in a tweet on Wednesday congratulated Palanetra for being elected as the Mayor of Mysuru.
“The BJP was able to get the Mayor’s post for the first time and it is an indication that the party’s roots are widening. Hearty congratulations to Sunanda Palanetra, who has been elected as the Mayor of Mysuru,” Yediyurappa tweeted.
The developments come at a time when the BJP is looking to expand its footprint in the Old Mysuru region or south interior Karnataka belt, where it has little or no presence and is key for its ambitions to return to power with a full majority on its own in the 2023 assembly elections.
This region, however, is considered a stronghold of the JD(S) and the Congress. Despite the friction and turbulent past, the two bitter rivals decided to come together in 2018 and continued its alliance to keep the BJP out of the district administration, much like how they did after the fractured verdict in the previous assembly polls.
The elections were important for all three parties in their own way. For the BJP, it was to make inroads in a region where it has no presence while the JD(S) is trying to stop the juggernaut of the saffron outfit in the one geography that gives it all its strength and faces an existential crisis if it does not stop the former from surging ahead. For the Congress, which believes the JD(S) and BJP are in an informal alliance, it is to win back as much ground as possible before the 2023 elections if it does have any hopes of ousting the BJP.
ST Somashekar, a cabinet minister and in-charge of Mysuru district said that the JD(S) had met the BJP this year as well and requested that the party to support the regional outfit for the post of Mayor.
Srikante Gowda, the MLC of the JD(S) said that there was just four months remaining in the Mayor’s term and that they had asked the Congress to allow the former to take control and the favour would be reciprocated next term. There are two more years of the corporation before it heads to the polls again.
Dhruvanarayana, however, said that there has been an “informal alliance’ between the JD(S) and the BJP.
This holds true in most other elections in Karnataka where the JD(S) and BJP have helped each other against the Congress, whom both consider a common enemy.
The JD(S), headed by former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and his former chief minister son HD Kumaraswamy, are the only major outfit to have allied with both the Congress and BJP in the past, allowing them to play “kingmaker” on more than one occasion.
However, Dhruvanarayana said that the BJP is unlikely to benefit from the Mysuru city corporation elections as it has no presence on the ground. Dhruvanarayana, considered a top performer formidable candidate in neighbouring Chamarajanagar, was ousted by V Srinivas Prasad of the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, giving the saffron outfit an unprecedented 25 out of the total 28 seats in the state.
