Allegations of corruption against the Congress government and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah appear to have taken a backseat amid verbal duels and scuffles in a turf battle between three Vokkaliga leaders.
Allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)] launched the Mysuru Chalo padayatra in Bengaluru on August 3 against the alleged Valmiki Corporation scam and accusations that Siddaramaiah abused his power to get the Mysuru Urban Development Authority to allot 14 sites to his wife Parvathi. As a counter, the Congress too launched its own Janandolana rallies on the same day to take on the ‘paapayatra’ (a play on the word padayatra, which translates to yatra of sins) of the two allied parties. However, the Congress rally will end on August 9, the day the BJP-JD(S) rally reaches Mysuru, but a day ahead of the culmination of the latter rally.
However, Vokkaliga leaders – Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar of the Congress and JD(S) chief and Mandya MP, HD Kumaraswamy – appear to be engaged in a turf battle for Vokkaliga support, even as a scuffle broke out between supporters of Kumaraswamy and former BJP MLA from Hassan, Preetham J Gowda, also a Vokkaliga.
In the last couple of days, Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy were seen trading barbs and daring each other to declare their personal wealth. Shivakumar alleged that Kumaraswamy and his family had amassed a lot of wealth, especially land in and around Bengaluru, through benami transactions and that they could not have made such money through farming alone.
Kumaraswamy has accused Shivakumar of grabbing 68 acres of land belonging to Dalits. He also accused Shivakumar of kidnapping a woman to coerce her father to hand over his land in Bengaluru.
JD(S)-BJP clash
On Wednesday, August 7, the fifth day of the JD(S)-BJP yatra, workers from both parties clashed in Mandya district when Preetham Gowda participated in the rally. Preetham’s supporters began raising the slogan “Gowdara Gowda, Preetham Gowda,” meaning ‘the tallest leader of Gowdas, Preetham Gowda’. JD(S) workers shot back with “Gowdara Gowda, Deve Gowda, Kumaranna,” which escalated into a scuffle. Later that evening, posters of Preetham were also burned.
Kumaraswamy tried to downplay the incident, saying that the scuffle was the work of a few miscreants and that the JD(S) and BJP alliance was not affected. This comes just days after he lashed out at the BJP for inviting Preetham Gowda to participate in meetings to discuss preparations for the padayatra. Kumaraswamy had accused Preetham of distributing the pen drives in Hassan and attempting to “destroy Deve Gowda’s family.” He was referring to allegations that his nephew Prajwal Revanna sexually assaulted several women in Hassan district and then filmed the assaults. Videos of the alleged assaults were later leaked through pen drives across Hassan.