File Photo: BJP-JD(S) leaders in Bengaluru
Credit: DH Photo/S K Dinesh
The BJP-JD(S) alliance worked magic in Tumkur, Kolar, and Chikkaballapur Lok Sabha segments, translating into Lingayat-Vokkaliga consolidation against the Congress. The handsome leads with which the BJP and JD(S) candidates won show that the Congress could not put up a fight against the alliance.
According to both party sources, Lingayat votes are in sizable numbers in Chikkaballapur and Tumkur Lok Sabha seats, while in Kolar, the number is around 40,000 to 45,000.
“The credit for ensuring Lingayat vote consolidation in the Chikkaballapur Lok Sabha seat must go to former bureaucrats - former Bengaluru City Police Commissioner B G Jyothiprakash Mirji of the JD(S) and former IAS officer C Somashekhar of the BJP – where there are around 1.50 lakh Lingayat voters.
Similarly, Somashekar worked hard in Tumkur, which has around 2.5 lakh Lingayat voters to consolidate the community voters as well as the retired government servants in all three seats,” a senior BJP functionary from Devanahalli told DH on the condition of anonymity.
The BJP leader further noted that the Tumkur and Chikkaballapur Lok Sabha seats were fraught with rebellion, where senior BJP leaders had raised the banner of revolt against the party candidates. “The Congress’s over-reliance on Ahinda vote bank irked both politically dominant communities. This helped Vokkaligas to side with the JD(S), and in turn, they did not hesitate to back the BJP Lingayat leader V Somanna in Tumkur,” a source in the JD(S) from Tumkur told DH.
Former Tumkur deputy commissioner C Somashekhar told DH that it was high time that both the dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities buried their hatchet, as both had been fighting against the Congress for a long time. “Both community leaders and seers of their respective communities should start working together to allay fears among both castes that one community would usurp power from the other. Both communities can win more seats if they succeed in burying their differences and a power-sharing formula is conceptualized and accepted by both communities in the long run,” he explained.
He hoped that the bonhomie between the JD(S) and the BJP would continue in the days to come.