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Anyone from outside the state covering elections in Karnataka can tell you how puzzling the caste-driven politics here can be. While caste is a common element in Indian elections, in Karnataka it demands near total attention in the selection of candidates in a good chunk of the constituencies. Among the broad outlines of caste dispersion in the state, the Old Mysore region, located in the southern part of the state, is considered to have a substantial population of Vokkaligas. The community is known to form a strong base of support for the Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)].
The Old Mysore region comprises the districts of Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan, Ramanagara, Kolar, Tumakuru, Chamarajanagar, Chikkaballapura, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Bengaluru Rural and Bengaluru Urban. With the exclusion of Bengaluru Urban, the districts account for 72 Assembly seats out of the 224. While leaders across parties, yes even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), talk about castes that play a role in bringing wins, very little is spoken about the calculations regarding the sub-castes of the candidates of dominant communities like Vokkaligas, Lingayats, and Brahmins for unreserved constituencies.
While there is no official data about the exact number of voters from various castes in a constituency, parties swear by the numbers drawn from their surveys. It is not enough to know that the majority votes in a constituency belong to Vokkaligas or Lingayats or any other community. It is also important to know what sub-caste they belong to. Political parties understand the concept of 'nammovru' (in this context, translates to ‘belonging to our community’) during elections.
For instance, both Varuna and Chamarajanagar constituencies – where BJP candidate V Somanna, an Aradhya Lingayat, is contesting – have a sizeable population of this sub-caste. Any other Lingayat sub-caste candidate contesting here will not draw the same support as an Aradhya Lingayat, who are found mostly in Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, and Bengaluru districts.
In Mysuru district’s Krishnaraja constituency, the BJP chose to overlook their sitting MLA SA Ramadas and gave the ticket to the district party president TS Srivatsa, a first-time contestant. In a constituency with majority Brahmin voters, SA Ramadas, a Brahmin, has won four times. Ramadas also happens to be a Muguru Brahmin, which is the majority Brahmin sub-caste, with a population of reportedly around 70,000-75,000. Earlier Brahmin winners from this constituency have also belonged to the same sub-caste. However, TS Srivatsa is an Iyengar and a relative unknown to the local Brahmin community. The BJP is now hoping that the Muguru community and other Brahmin sub-castes will support him simply for being the only Brahmin from the main parties in the fray.
The second largest voter group in Krishnaraja are Dalits, with roughly 40,000 voters. The BJP is now trying to woo them with the help of their Lok Sabha MP V Srinivas Prasad, a Dalit who represents the reserved constituency of Chamarajanagar. Prasad, a veteran leader, is expected to be not only influential enough in getting the Dalit votes in Krishnaraja for Srivatsa but also secure the Dalit votes in Chamarajanagar for Somanna.
This manner of choosing candidates has always been underlined in the state, says veteran journalist and political analyst Preethi Nagaraj. While candidates in north Karnataka – where Lingayats voters are present in large numbers – will be Lingayats, they will also belong to the sub-caste that is prevalent in the area. So a Sadar Lingayat is unlikely to be considered for an area where the majority of voters are Banajiga Lingayats and vice versa. This has been fine-tuned by JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda, Preethi adds. “He has vast experience and is meticulous in his approach. His consideration of candidates along sub-caste lines is instinctive,” she says.
The JD(S) featured in the news prominently in the run-up to the Assembly elections because of the purported dissension in the Deve Gowda family over the party ticket in the Hassan constituency. Deve Gowda’s second son HD Revanna’s wife Bhavani had shown a keen interest in contesting against BJP’s sitting MLA and candidate Preetham Gowda. Party chief HD Kumaraswamy was disinclined towards this and was firm on HP Swaroop. Eventually, Bhavani was dissuaded from contesting. While the media played up the ‘discord’ in the family as a result of this issue, a political observer in the district says that Kumaraswamy’s unwillingness to field Bhavani stemmed from the reason that Hassan has the sub-caste Dasa Vokkaliga voters in high concentration, whereas the Deve Gowda family belong to the Gangatkar Vokkaliga community. Swaroop is a Dasa Vokkaliga and his father HS Prakash has won from the segment four times, while representing the Congress and later the JD(S). Fielding a Gangatkar, the party felt, would hurt their chances of winning the Hassan seat and possibly even winning a couple of other seats in Hassan district.
A senior leader from the Old Mysore region who has worked with both the Congress and JD(S) estimates that Gangatkars comprise almost 70% of all Vokkaligas.
Among the rest of the sub-castes, around eight constituencies are dominated by Kunchitiga Vokkaligas in the 17 Assembly constituencies that come under Tumakuru and Chitradurga. Reddy Vokkaligas form a sizeable number in Kolar, Chikkaballapur, and Bengaluru Urban areas.
However, it is not all black-and-white. For instance, in the Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru, the candidates for the three major parties – GT Deve Gowda (JD(S)), Siddegowda (Congress), and Kaveesh Gowda (BJP) – are Gangatkar Vokkaligas. Though it is a level playing field as far as sub-castes are concerned, the odds heavily favour GT Deve Gowda, who is the sitting MLA and wields considerable influence in the area.
When Sumalatha – wife of the popular actor and leader Ambareesh, who died in 2018 – decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Mandya seat in 2019, her non-Vokkaliga status made her success uncertain. A Telugu Naidu, she was pitched by her supporters as someone who was Gangatkar Vokkaliga by virtue of her marriage to Ambareesh and thus an acceptable candidate in the Gangatkar-dominated area. Contesting as an independent and backed by the BJP, she went on to win the seat, defeating Nikhil, Kumaraswamy’s son, by a margin of over one lakh votes.
Preethi comments that even new voters are not immune to such micro-considerations. Even with advanced education, jobs in cities, and more exposure, younger voters also take sub-caste into consideration. “At a national level, a new generation voter might believe in party ideologies that offer nation-building or Hindutva. But at a local level, they want their sub-caste representation. Not even the BJP can ignore such considerations, as voters inevitably tend to support people from their community because of the ease of conduct and expectation.”
Lakhs of people from the villages of Mandya, Ramanagara, and Mysuru go to Bengaluru in search of employment and reside here. But a substantial majority go back home to vote in the elections. Their expectation of who they want to represent them from their villages is still set in how they benefit in agrarian issues (agricultural loan waivers and housing are a huge draw), as opposed to what they would want if they were voting in Bengaluru. In many instances, village heads maintain contact with all the migrants and tell them whom they should vote for, based on sub-caste and how it would benefit the village.
More than three decades ago, Prof Muzaffar Assadi, a political analyst and a faculty member at Mysuru University, wrote about another division among the Vokkaligas – the urban Vokkaliga who was cosmopolitan, modern in outlook and lived in a city, and the rural Vokkaliga, who was agrarian and rustic. “The urban Vokkaliga was likely to support the BJP or a suave SM Krishna and be a little sympathetic to Deve Gowda while the rural Vokkaliga’s allegiance lay strong with Deve Gowda as he is considered to represent that agrarian identity,” he says.
The dynamics are constantly changing. Assadi says that a possible reason for Vokkaligas leaders in the BJP like CN Ashwath Narayan or R Ashoka failing to have a large impact on the community out of Bengaluru might be due to the feeling among Vokkaliga voters that the larger Hindutva ideology of the party might sideline them. He explains, “When top leaders like BL Santhosh stress upon a new identity and new India, Vokkaligas feel marginalised as they feel they will end up playing a secondary role to Hindutva. When they see coastal Karnataka, they see a social coalition of Brahmins, Bunts, and Billavas occupying the primary role, while Other Backward Classes become foot soldiers. There is a fear that Vokkaligas might be used as auxiliary agencies in the pursuit of a main Hindu ideology and that they will not be given primary roles.”
For the Congress, the portrayal of another Gangatkar Vokkaliga, DK Shivakumar, as a possible Chief Minister candidate is expected to boost their seats in the region. The previous Vokkaliga CMs like Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy, and SM Krishna are Gangatkars. The party hopes that the crucial swing votes of the Gangatkars will tilt in their favour to support Shivakumar.