Himanta Biswa Sarma held rallies in 11 seats & BJP won 5 — how party’s star campaigners fared in Karnataka

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had the best strike rate in the Karnataka assembly election, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 5 of 11 seats where he campaigned for the party’s candidates.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the BJP’s biggest vote-catcher over the past decade, three of the party’s remaining 39 star campaigners in Karnataka — Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and his counterpart in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma — captured many eyeballs with their aggressive campaigning.

Between 24 April and 7 May, Shah addressed 23 rallies or public meetings across the state, along with nine road shows. Sarma held 11 rallies or public meetings within a span of a week and Adityanath held nine public meetings between 26 April and 6 May.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister kick-started his campaign from Mandya in a bid to woo the Vokkaliga community. The Gorakhnath temple — of which he is the mahant — and the Adichunchanagiri Mutt in Mandya enjoy a massive following among Vokkaligas and are revered by followers of the Nath Panth tradition. 

Between the three, Sarma had the highest strike rate at 45 per cent since of the 11 constituencies where he campaigned for the party, the BJP won five. Amit Shah’s strike rate, meanwhile, was 34 per cent while Yogi’s was 44 per cent.

Adityanath addressed rallies in the districts of Dakshina Kannada, Uttar Kannada, Vijayapura, Chikkamagaluru, Koppal, Raichur, and Kalaburagi.

In Chikkamagaluru, where Adityanath had addressed a public meeting, BJP national general secretary C.T. Ravi, a four-time MLA from the seat, lost by 5,926 votes, while in Raichur,  BJP’s Dr. Shivraj Patil won by 3,732 votes, defeating Congress’s Mohammed Shalam.

In Kalaburagi district, the Congress won two seats (Gulbarga Uttar & Gulbarga Dakshin) and Gulbarga Rural was won by the BJP. Adityanath had addressed a rally in the district, and it’s also where Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had said that the UP CM’s “bulldozer” would come for the common people in the constituency if they don’t vote for the Congress.

Shah & Sarma’s success rate

Shah addressed public meetings and rallies in key constituencies including Hubli, Gundlupet, Udupi, and Navalgund, among others, and held roadshows in Belagavi South, Mangaluru, Belagavi North, BTM Layout and Yadgir. 

He also campaigned in the Varuna assembly constituency, where former chief minister Siddaramaiah and the BJP’s V. Somanna were pitted against each other in a high-stakes battle. Siddaramaiah defeated Somanna by a margin of 46,163 votes.

In Hubli, another high-stakes seat where Shah campaigned, former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar contested on a Congress ticket after he was denied a ticket by the BJP.

Denying a ticket to Shettar did not cost the party much as BJP’s Mahesh Tenginakai won the seat by 34,289 votes.

Sarma addressed 11 public meetings, including in Koramangala, Byatarayanapura, Malleshwaram, Arsikere, Ujire (Belthangady), Madikeri, Gonikoppal (Virajpet), Kapu, Mulki (Moodabidri) and Lalbagh (Mangalore City North).

Of these, the BJP won Belthagandy (margin: 18,216 votes), Malleswaram (margin: 41,302 votes), Kapu (margin: 13,004 votes), Moodabidri (margin: 22,468 votes) and Mangalore City North (margin: 32,922 votes).

At a rally in Virajpet seat in Kodagu district, where Sarma raked up the issue of Tipu Sultan, the BJP’s K.G. Bopaiah lost by 4,291 votes.

Sarma had said at the rally that state Congress chief D.K. Shivakumar was a member of Tipu Sultan’s family and that Karnataka would turn into a ‘PFI’ — the banned outfit Popular Front of India — if Congress is voted to power in the state.

(Print)