It is set for a battle royale in Karnataka. Two desperate and heavyweight politicians are fighting for Lok Sabha stakes and the battle has begun in right earnest. Karnataka Janatha Paksha (KJP) leader, former BJP chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and the current incumbent Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah are locked in a battle of attrition. As soon as the BJP high command and the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi gives the green signal, the former is set to return to his natural habitat, which brings him in direct collision with the latter.
With Karnataka gearing up for the Lok Sabha, both political formations are looking for issues that can quickly grab public attention – in other words swell their vote banks. While the Siddaramaiah government is banking on sops and schemes announced on an urgent basis to appease the first-time voter, opposition parties, especially Yeddyurappa, is leaving no stone unturned to find faults with these schemes branding them ‘opportunistic.’
After the somewhat aborted social welfare plans announced by the state government and Siddaramiah’s less-than-fruitful attempts at cobbling up a Dalit-minority coalition, AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits), farmer politics is taking centre stage.
The plight of sugarcane and areca nut growers is dominating the agenda these days in Karnataka. After the suicide of sugarcane farmer Vittal Arabhavi outside the Belgaum assembly, site for the state’s winter session, protests and agitational politics by opposition parties has picked up.
