Karnataka: Avoiding Dissent May Cost Congress Ballari By-Election

An outsider was chosen for the bypoll to keep a check on conflict within the Congress party.

The by-election for the Ballari Lok Sabha seat was pitched as a precursor to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. With Ballari’s two strongmen – Congress’ DK Shivakumar and BJP’s B Sriramalu – the by-election was expected to be a showdown.

But the stakes have been lowered with the Congress unexpectedly fielding a complete outsider for what had promised to be a hotly contested electoral fight. S Ugrappa is, a Congress MLC, was on 15 October, was fielded as the Congress’ contender from Ballari, which in 1999 witnessed the high profile battle between in Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj.

Ostensibly, the Congress party was prompted to go against DK Shivakumar’s wishes to avoid an internal conflict with the Jarkiholi brothers with whom he is at loggerheads over political control over North Karnataka.

With no forseeable solution, Congress legislative party leader Siddaramaiah decided to field an outsider.

The Candidate by Chance

Although Ugrappa, a native of Tumkuru district in south Karnataka, is an unlikely candidate to contest an election in north Karnataka, he was active in the campaign against illegal mining in Ballari between 2008 and 2013.

The campaign against illegal mining of Reddy brothers helped the party win the 2013 Assembly polls.

When asked about his chances of victory, Ugrappa told reporters that the ‘outsider tag’ will not affect him and his clean image would help him win the elections.

But Ugrappa will be contesting the elections against senior BJP leader and mining baron B Sriramalu’s sister Shanta. The seat was earlier held by Sriramalu, who vacated the post to contest the Assembly polls in May 2018.

A Congress leader, however, pointed out that whoever wins this elections would serve as an MP for a mere five months. In such a case, the party’s stability was more important than a bypoll.

Nipping Dissent in the Bud

When Jarkiholi brothers demanded that DKS be removed as the minister in charge of Ballari, the alternative candidate they proposed was B Nagendra, an MLA from Ballari.

So, when Nagendra pitched his brother Venkatesh Prasad as the candidate for Lok Sabha by-election, the Jarkiholi brothers supported the decision. However, DK Shivakumar was not happy and proposed a set of candidates from his end.

As the situation was moving towards another conflict, Siddaramaiah called for a meeting of all MLAs and announced Ugrappa, an outsider, as the candidate.

The Root of the Fear

It was just a month ago that an ego clash between the Jarkiholi brothers – Ramesh and Satish – and DK Shivakumar had threatened the stability of the coalition government. The brothers, who enjoyed control over north Karnataka’s politics for several years, were opposed to DK Shivakumar, a leader from the south, taking control over cooperative banks in north Karnataka’s Belagavi district.

Things soon turned ugly.

The two brothers threatened to quit the party if DK Shivakumar “did not stop interfering with the politics of the districts in north Karnataka”. They were also opposed to him being the minister in charge of Ballari, an important district in the region.

After several rounds of negotiations, the party leadership convinced the Jarkiholi brothers that DK Shivakumar will be asked to stay away from north Karnataka. They were also promised that DKS will be replaced by a local MLA, as the minister-in-charge for the district.

However, as the Cabinet expansion was delayed in the first week of October, DKS continued as the minister in charge of Ballari.