IT’s not just a record number of chief ministerial aspirants in fray, but also the highest number of kin of leaders who occupied the chief minister’s gaddi in Karnataka.
There are eight children, seven sons and a daughter, of former chief ministers across party lines in contest. Two of them stand out in the list — HD Deve Gowda’s son HD Kumaraswamy versus Ramakrishna Hegde’s daughter Mamatha Nichani (Congress) in Ramanagaram and Sarekoppa Bangarappa’s sons Kumar (Congress) and Madhu (Samajawadi Party), who are fighting each other for control of their father’s bastion, Soraba in Shimoga district.
Then there are others — maverick Mahima Patel, trying to retain his father JH Patel’s constituency of Chennagiri, Basavaraj Bommai (BJP) at Shiggon in Haveri district, Kumaraswamy’s elder sibling HD Revanna at Holenarasipura in Hassan district, and Dinesh Gundu Rao (Congress).