The Lingayat-dominated Dharwad Lok Sabha constituency is one of the BJP’s strongholds in north Karnataka, where Union Minister Pralhad Joshi has won four consecutive terms since 2004.
This time, amid notable opposition to the office, Joshi, 61, is also facing a challenge from a section of the Lingayat community, even as he relies mainly on his hold on the constituency and the party. Narendra Modi Factor to see it through.
Joshi is facing off against Congress’s Vinod Asoti, a 34-year-old OBC leader. The Congress fielded a non-Lingayat candidate in Dharwad for the first time since 1998, when it floated Diyamba Kalappa Naikkar.
The situation in the constituency took a turn after April 18 when Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation Congress councilor Niranjan Hiremath’s daughter Neha Hiremath, a 23-year-old student of MCA, was stabbed to death on her college campus, allegedly by her. Former classmate Faiz Khondanik, 23, who was arrested after the incident.
In her campaign since then, Bharatiya Janata Party This incident has been raised as a case of “love jihad”. the
Banners of Neha, seeking ‘justice’ for her, have been put up on all major roads and intersections in the Hubballi-Dharwad belt.
Senior BJP leaders, including the Union Home Minister Amit Shah National party president JP Nadda, along with Joshi, visited Hiremath’s residence, even along with senior Congress leaders, including the Prime Minister. siddaramaiahI also met the family.
Ramesh Kulkarni, a resident of Hubballi, said this was a “case of love gone terribly wrong”. “However, that may not be a factor when we vote,” he said. “We will need a strong government for the country and we will vote for it.”
In his election rallies, Joshi continued to focus on the BJP’s ideological issues – including the abrogation of Article 370, alleged “minority appeasement” by the Congress and Modi’s “achievements” – while the focus was on regional issues such as drought and the Mahadayi river dispute. Back burner.
The Congress campaign is being managed by district in-charge minister and party firebrand Santosh Lad.
What gave Joshi a distinct advantage is that Asoti is a lightweight leader in Congress and his “appearances” in the constituency are not considered important.
However, a Congress leader said: “Our party has a chance to get votes in rural areas like Navalgund, Shegaon and Kalhatagi. There are more than 50% Muslim voters in Hubballi, east of the country, and they can also swing towards the Congress.”
However, in a jolt to the Congress, its senior regional leader Vinay Kulkarni was banned from entering Dharwad district for his alleged involvement in a murder case.
In the constituency, Lingayats and Muslims are seen as “game changers”, accounting for about 25% and 23% of the electorate respectively.
What is a setback for Joshi is the campaign by one of the local Lingayat seers, Fakir Dingaleshwar Swami of Shirahatti Fakireshwar Math, an influential regional mathematician, demanding that the BJP replace the former with the face of Lingayat.
Alleging that Joshi, the Brahmin leader, had ignored the concerns of the Lingayat community, Dingaleshwar Swami also filed his nomination from the constituency as an independent candidate, from which he later withdrew. But he continued his campaign against Joshi.
A BJP leader admitted that there was local resentment against Joshi, especially in the Lingayat community. He cited the example of Dharwad BJP veteran Jagadish Shettar, Lingayat leader and former chief minister, who left the party ahead of the May 2023 Assembly elections, but returned to the fold four months ago and is now contesting on its ticket from Belagavi. “The way Jagadish Shettar and some other Lingayat leaders have been sidelined in the BJP in Dharwad district is a problem. But we need to see how things pan out,” the BJP leader said.
The BJP has also faced embarrassment over the sexual assault allegations that have now surfaced against its ally MP Haasan and candidate Prajwal Revanna, grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, though the party has distanced itself from him.
A Congress stronghold since independence, the BJP won the Dharwad seat in the 1996 polls following the Hubballi riots after hoisting the national flag at Idgah Maidan, creating a narrative of Hindutva sentiments that led to BJP dominance in the region. “That incident became a platform for the emergence of several BJP leaders, including Pralhad Joshi, late Anant Kumar and others,” a party worker said.
Dharwad will go to the polls on May 7. Of the eight Assembly segments, the Congress and the BJP won four each in the 2023 Assembly elections.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Joshi defeated Congress MP Vinay Kulkarni from the constituency by over 2 lakh votes.