Mandya, 4 June

By winning the Mandya Lok Sabha seat on Tuesday, former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has not only managed to regain the JD(S)' lost bastion, but has also in a way successfully managed to reestablish his party's weakened political relevance in Karnataka, by allying with the BJP.

Kumaraswamy defeated Venkataramane Gowda (also known as Star Chandru) of the Congress by a margin of 2,84,620 votes. According to the Election Commission, he secured 8,51,881 votes, while Gowda got 5,67,261.

The 64-year-old son of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has made no secret of his desire to become Agriculture Minister, if the Modi government comes back to power. Kumaraswamy, who is also the state JD(S) President, is a five time MLA, and currently represents Channapatna Assembly seat.

It is said that Kumaraswamy hoped that 2023 Assembly polls would yield a hung verdict and that he would emerge as a "king maker" or a "king" himself for the third time, but his dreams were dashed with his party's dismal performance and Congress' emphatic victory.

With compulsions of keeping his party afloat and to remain politically relevant in the state, Kumaraswamy once again joined hands with the BJP to forge an alliance, and managed to get three out of 28 Lok Sabha seats.

Aimed at ensuring that the regional party wins the seats that was ceded to it, the BJP leadership persuaded Kumaraswamy to contest in one of the three seats, hoping that it will give momentum to his party's prospects in the other two seats, and help the alliance partner, especially in the old Mysuru region, where the saffron party is considered to be relatively weak.

Aiming to regain control over the party's lost Vokkaliga bastion, Kumaraswamy chose Mandya for his contest, which in 2019, multilingual actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent candidate backed by the BJP, had won by defeating his son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD(S) alliance Nikhil Kumaraswamy.

Sumalatha this time had sought BJP's ticket for re-election from the seat. However, BJP ceded the seat to its alliance partner the JD(S), and also managed to convince her.

By winning here, Kumaraswamy has managed to strengthen his clout over the region and the Vokkaliga community, for which there has always been a virtual battle of sorts between him and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.