Election in a democracy is the season for migrants. Like birds and animals migrate from one location to another during certain seasons and for certain reasons like drought or forest fire, smart politicians too migrate from one party to another. They are the ones who know which side of the bread is buttered! In Mysuru district, the political leaders at the Constituency-level have started sending signals and spreading wings to cross-over to one of the three leading parties — Congress, BJP and JD(S). As we know, among the 11 Constituencies in Mysuru District, only Varuna and Chamundeshwari Constituencies are making news because of the candidates from the Congress and the BJP who are contesting here. In Varuna, Chief Minister’s son Dr. Yathindra Siddharamaiah was the early bird and everyone thought it was going to be a cake-walk for him as the BJP was not finding a matching challenger to fight him. We must see if the early bird gets the worm!! BJP’s star candidate of 2008 election in this very Constituency, former IPS Officer L. Revanasiddaiah, soon deserted BJP, and paradoxically held the hands of Siddharamaiah against whom he lost. As for Chamundeshwari, Siddharamaiah had won it by a whisker, 257 votes, in his first contest here after quitting JD(S), as a Congress candidate in the by-election of 2006. The other two elections he fought from the neighbouring Varuna Constituency in 2008 and 2013 Assembly election and won hands-down with a very comfortable margin of 18,837 and 29,641 votes respectively. Surprisingly, this time, for 2018 election, he has sacrificed such a safe seat for his son Dr. Yathindra, taking a BIG risk in Chamundeshwari where his once friend, now turned foe, G.T. Devegowda, an old electoral war-horse is contesting from JD(S). It is in this context, Varuna becomes important for the political parties. In the early days, it was presumed by many political pundits and also the voters of those two Constituencies that while Varuna would go to Congress, Chamundeshwari would go to JD(S). While a dummy BJP candidate would be fielded in Chamundeshwari to help JD(S) to defeat Siddharamaiah, in Varuna both BJP and JD(S) had almost come to accept the reality, but, as a ritual, wanted to field some one as a proverbial sacrificial goat. That was how Abhishek from JD(S) entered Varuna and no one is even mentioned from BJP for Varuna.
