Chakkere Puttamadegowda Yogeshwar joins Congress in presence of Karnataka deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Wednesday.
Credit: DH Photo
Bengaluru: Between films and frequent party-hopping, the only constant for Chakkere Puttamadegowda Yogeshwar has been Channapatna.
Once again, the battle lines have been drawn at Channapatna whose bypoll will see Yogeshwar having returned to Congress to take on someone picked by Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy of the JD(S), his arch-rival in the Vokkaliga heartland.
The spectacle couldn’t have been more filmy: Yogeshwar is a former movie star while Kumaraswamy was a film distributor.
Yogeshwar, 61, has represented Channapatna five times, but not before earning the moniker 'Jumping Star'.
"I admit I'm a jumping star. That's what my political situation is," Yogeshwar, unapologetic, said. "If I got the BJP ticket this time, I'd have remained there as a star."
On several occasions, Yogeshwar has responded to criticism by stating that Channapatna was more important than his party affiliation. Yogeeshwar has the Garkalli and Kanva lift irrigation projects to his credit, giving him huge popularity. The projects helped fill several tanks in the region.
After graduating from the VV Puram College in 1986, Yogeshwar chose a career in Sandalwood -- from a supporting role in Ravichandran’s cult classic 'Ranadheera' (1988) to playing the hero in the 2002 hit 'Sainika'.
Politics was Yogeshwar's next job, which started with a his maiden win in Channapatna as an independent in 1999. Next, he won on a Congress ticket in the 2004 and 2008 Assembly polls.
In 2009, he unsuccessfully contested on a BJP ticket against Kumaraswamy from the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seat. The rivalry had just begun.
In a 2011 bypoll, Yogeshwar won from BJP and became the forest minister.
Around the same time, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) launched an inquiry into Megacity Builders and Development Ltd, a company Yogeshwar started in 1995, for allegedly executing fake sale deeds and not allotting sites to investors as promised. Cases are still pending, according to his 2023 election affidavit.
In 2013, he bested Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha from Channapatna on a Samajwadi Party ticket with the then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhikesh Yadav campaigning for him. A year later, he returned to Congress.
But six months before the 2018 Assembly polls, Yogeshwar joined BJP again alleging that Congress leaders DK Shivakumar and DK Suresh were trying to scuttle his growth. The switch to BJP did not help Yogeshwar as Kumaraswamy beat him twice in 2018 and 2023.