Yatra Politics: JD(S) Jumps Into Election Mode With Pancharatna Rathayatre On Kannada Rajyotsava

It is yatra time in Karnataka politics. The state goes to elections in May next year (2023).

The latest to join the yatra bandwagon is Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S), which will launch its Pancharatna Yatre tomorrow (1 November).

On the occasion of Kannada Rajyotsava, JD(S) will launch its yatra for ‘Navakarnataka Nirmana’ (the building of a new Karnataka) from Kurudumale in Mulabagilu taluk of Kolar district.

Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy tweeted, inviting all “Kannadigas” to “step towards development”.

He has earlier said that his party is confident of independently coming back to power and would not join hands with either Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Congress, like its previous stints that made him the chief minister.

Kumaraswamy headed a coalition government for 20 months with BJP from February 2006, and with Congress for 14 months after the 2018 elections.

Language and corruption cards are being played by the unofficial third front against the two national parties, while consolidating its strongest vote bank and the second largest community, the Vokkaligas in the state.

Former prime minister H D Devegowda still features as its key and star campaigner.

Former Congressman C M Ibrahim as state president of the JD(S) has been a low decibel move to wash off the ‘appa maga party’ or dynasty politics image that BJP often used against it.

Kumaraswamy had stepped down from the post of president and taken up the role of the president of the JD(S) national parliamentary board.

The party, as reported by PTI earlier, has decided to contest all 224 assembly seats and is confident that it will “earn the trust of the people to achieve the target of winning at least 123 seats,” said Kumarasswamy, as quoted.

He added that around 123-126 candidates will be announced tomorrow (1 November) as they kick-start the Pancharatna Rathayatra.

Modelled on the lines of the national Har Ghar Tiranga campaign, the JD(s) has given a call for mane mane mele kannada baawuta (Kannada flag atop every house), which it will launch tomorrow.

The party has also been accusing the BJP of trying to usurp Vokkaliga legend and founder of Bengaluru Kempegowda.

Its Dasarahalli MLA R Manjunath who also got many AAP supporters to join the party recently protested the absence of images of any Vokkaliga seers in the Kempegowda Ratha that the government has paraded across the state to collect soil to be part of the Kempegowda memorial, touted as the ‘world’s tallest statue of a founder of a city’.

The Kempegowa Ratha has been travelling across the state and the soil collected will be used at the site of the 108 feet  ‘statue of prosperity’ at the Kempegowda International Airport that will be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 11 November.

While the BJP has already been on its ‘Jana Sankalpa Yatre’ for some time now, the Congress which has been saying it has been ‘energised’ following the Karnataka stint of Rahul Gandhi’s 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.

However, Congress will soon see two of its senior leaders competing for the top post holding their own yatras — one tractor yatra led by D K Shivakumar and another by Siddharamaiah, who has proposed a bus yatra, as reported.