Bengaluru: AH Vishwanath, who engineered the collapse of HD Kumaraswamy-led JDS and Congress government bit the dust in Hunsur by-election. He was defeated by Congress candidate HP Manjunath by a margin of over 30,000 votes.
AH Vishwanath, who was the JDS state unit president quit the post to join the BJP. He was often blamed by both JDS and Congress for engineering the defection which resulted in the collapse of the coalition government.
Vishwanath had assured the bifurcation of the Mysuru district and forming a separate Devaraja Urs district with Hunsur as its headquarters as his election manifesto.
According to the sources, BJP was expecting JDS strongman GT Devegowda’s help to win the election. Gowda allegedly worked for the Congress candidate Manjunath. “Gowda wants to reserve this constituency for his son Harish Gowda. As Manjunath is from the numerically insignificant Arya Vaishya community, Gowda tilted his support towards him. Vishwanath wanted to nurture his son Amit in this constituency for the 2023 election. This boomeranged,” said a BJP leader.
