Vijayapura: In the last assembly election held in 2018, the JD (S) despite having negligible presence in the Sindagi assembly constituency, won the election. The BJP had secured second position while the Congress had to satisfy with third position.
After over three years, the political arithmetic has completely changed in the constituency in the by-elections. The BJP not only won the election but the party’s candidate Ramesh Bhusnur has set a new record by winning thrice in Sindagi assembly constituency. No candidate so far has won thrice in the history of elections in Sindagi.
The Congress which had secured third position, clinched second position in the election where party candidate Ashok Managuli secured over 62,000 votes.
The surprising factor in the polls is the abysmal performance of the JD (S) which could not even secure its deposit.
Though the Congress has accused the ruling BJP of winning the polls by misusing government machinery and spending huge amount of money, however analysts believe that several factors have caused the defeat of the party.
Despite the Congress deploying its State and Central leaders to ensure the victory of the party candidate Ashok Managuli and the party holding extensive campaigns, the candidate failed to record victory.
The political analysts believe that the party’s traditional voters, that includes backwards and Dalits chose to vote for the BJP over the Congress while Muslims voters largely remained intact with the Congress. The non-Muslims voters, mainly the dominant Lingayats switched their sides to BJP. In the last assembly election, they voted for the JD(S).
Though the party leaders deny it, the discontent among the local leaders, particularly the ticket aspirants, apparently has also caused the defeat. It may be noted that after the Congress gave the ticket to Ashok Managuli who switched over to the Congress from JD (S), the local leaders of the Congress were unhappy. However, the party leaders claimed that they succeeded in pacifying the disgruntled leaders.
The results have also proved that the alleged plan of the JD (S) to divide the Muslims votes to defeat the Congress candidate has failed to materialise. The JD (S) was reportedly angry after Ashok Managuli quit the party and joined the Congress. The party leader, H. D. Kumaraswamy was upset with the development and thus wanted to ensure the defeat of Ashok Managuli. With this objective, he fielded Naziya Angadi, a Muslim candidate to woo Muslim voters who have a significant presence in the taluk. With JD (S) securing only 4321 votes, it shows that the majority of the Muslims chose to vote for the Congress.
Meanwhile, Ramesh Bhusnur, the BJP candidates claims that he has secured at least 4,000 votes of Muslim community. The extensive campaign by the BJP is also believed to have acted well for the party. The party had deployed several leaders and ministers of different castes to woo the voters.
