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Last Updated on June 12, 2023
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I don’t know if you have seen the Game of Thrones Series. But, I can’t help myself draw parallels between the TV series with Karnataka politics before the upcoming assembly election. Even If you haven’t seen the series, you would still understand the comparison as they are not very specific to Game of Thrones alone.
I also embed Youtube clips because no amount of transcriptions and commentary can capture the Drama. Watch and enjoy.
Characters getting killed = Veteran politicians having to end their careers or Missing the ticket.
In Game of Thrones, Viewers are unaware of when will be the last day of a character. Not just that, characters themselves have no clue about it. In the same way, the supporters or even politicians themselves have no clue that their political life is numbered. Even the veteran politicians who had developed a career for decades had to finally take their last breath.
Following is the curated list of politicians and their responses in video clips before the 2023 Karnataka Assembly Election. Get ready to have some fun…I mean drama.
In the following list, I have left out both Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi which I plan to cover in another post.
Ragu Achar
Congress denies the ticket but contests as a JDS candidate. But, he loses by getting only 5000 votes.
Akanda Srinivasa Murthy
2-time MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy who had left JDS and joined Congress doesn’t get the ticket from Congress. In 2018, he won with the highest margin of votes in the state, which was more than 80k. In 2023, Congress refused to give him a ticket so he stands as a BSP candidate only to gain mere 25k votes and get defeated by a Congress candidate.
Eeshwarappa
Apparently, Modi didn’t call others who missed the ticket. Does that mean only those people got the call from Modi who was a “good sport” or accepted the not-getting-ticked decision without a fuss?
Ramdas
Ramdas Refuses To Meet Party Colleagues. Pratap Simha and the candidate Srivatsa went to console Ramdas. But, he sent them away.
Here is Ramdas holding a press meeting after being denied a ticket.
Nehru Olekar
Nehru Olekar, not getting the ticket, takes out his anger against Bommai Sarkar and the party. “The government has earned the title 40% sarkar”, he says. He goes on to take out his frustration on by saying “The government is the corrupt government and Bommai has become a corruption agent. And, he has not capable to organize the party and if he tries, it will be a huge setback”.
Raghupati Bhat
Raghupati Bhat says he is still in shock and can’t process the way the party treated him. He is hurt and sheds tears for not getting the ticket. But, says he won’t leave the party.
V Somanna
Somanna had been expecting 2 tickets one for himself to contest in his home constituency – Govindarajanagar and another for his son. In this above video, he clearly says that he has no intentions nor there will be any situation in the future where he will have to contest in Varuna.
To be fair, he did get 2 tickets just not in the way he imagined.
Maybe, he never intended to get the ticket for his son. Maybe, it was only a bargaining chip for him to not contest in the Varuna constituency against Siddaramaiah. But, it didn’t work.
Somanna didn’t expect this. From this video it is clear he was still processing the fact that he has to contest from two seats to prove his leadership.
He says “It doesn’t matter whether contesting in 2 two new seats is good or bad. Not everyone gets this opportunity. God and some important people in the state and the party believed in me and this opportunity is their blessing. “.
Somanna gives a lame rationale for getting to contest in two seats. He makes it sound like this is good for his political career though he doesn’t believe in it. He got no choice but to contest in these constituencies where he will most likely lose. I feel sorry for him.
Everyone knows that fighting against Ex-CM and Mass leader Siddaramiah is not a cakewalk by any measure. So, the Varuna constituency was tough for Somanna. But, not just Varuna, even in Chamarajanagar, the contest easy one. Otherwise, he would not have talked to the JDS candidate to withdraw his nomination on the last day. Following is the leaked audio clip.
In the following video, you will see a Chamarajanaga candidate from JDS, Mallikarjun Swamy aka Aluru Mallu, admitting that he was offered 50 Lakhs to take back his nomination.
Somanna loses in both seats – Varun and Chamarajanagara. Poor guy! He was planning to advance the political career of his son. He would never have imagined his own political career would end in such a bad way.
Here is a video clip where Bommai talks to the press after meeting Somanna to console him on the defeat.
R Shankar
R Shankar, who had won as a candidate of Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party in 2018, joined BJP in 2019 during Operation Kamala. But, BJP denies him a ticket in 2023. He contests with a National Congress Party ticket but secures third place by gaining 37K votes.
If you want to read about the 3 most common types of public opinions about the voting or election, then check out this post – 2023 Karnataka Assembly Election: Public’s perception over Election
