Clash of Titans: Is it S M Krishna vs Ananth Kumar in Bangalore South?
By Special Political Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network—Bangalore (CN)
Bangalore, Mar 5: The heavyweights of major political parties have been back in active ‘political’ business since the Election Commissioner announced the dates for the parliamentary polls.
Many interesting developments are likely to take place in the next few days as party leaderships are busy finalizing candidates.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have done its homework well. Their game plan might well help them get ahead of other parties in the state.
The Congress party, however, is unfortunately plagued by infighting with regard to the choice of candidates. It appears the party has not learnt from the humiliating defeat in the assembly polls last year.
Bangalore South, always a prestigious parliamentary seat from Karnataka, is one constituency where the election heat has been turned on much earlier than others.
Though neither party has made any official announcement, the grapevine has it that the state’s former chief minister and former governor of Maharashtra S M Krishna will take on BJP’s senior leader and former union minister Ananth Kumar.
Krishna had not contested the assembly polls from Madhur or Chamarajpet as popularly expected, but had chosen to spearhead the Congress campaign.
Daijiworld has learnt from reliable sources that the Congress high command has been putting pressure on Krishna to contest from Bangalore south to defeat BJP’s star candidate Ananth Kumar.
“Ananth Kumar has been representing the constituency for more than a decade now”, said a source in the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). “He was a cabinet minister in the central government. To defeat him, we need a star candidate and the high command has asked to Krishna to take up the cudgels”, added the source.
The BJP is not surprised at this development, “We are least bothered who the candidate is. We know how to tackle them,” says a confident Sadananda Gowda, state BJP president.
Sources close to S M Krishna claim that the high command may have planned something, but it would be discussed thoroughly before a decision is taken.
Sometime next week, the suspense will be unraveled and it will be clear if Bangalore south constituency will witness the clash of the titans or not.