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ELECTIONS '96

Hegde keeps promise, smashes Janata Dal

The nascent Lok Shakti, founded by former Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde, has carved a niche for itself in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections by winning three seats with handsome margins.

Although the party was founded about a year ago after Hegde was expelled from the Janata Dal, it fielded candidates in 10 Lok Sabha constituencies after striking an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Ultimately, the election results proved that the alliance was the right move for both the BJP and Hegde.

Hegde had vowed to finish former prime minister H D Deve Gowda politically as he felt certain that his expulsion was initiated by Deve Gowda. Hegde took his revenge to the logical end in his scheme of things by extensively travelling throughout the state.

He impressed upon the voters by saying that he was expelled from the Janata Dal, which he had founded, for no fault of his.

The rout of ruling party in the state could be attributed mainly to the BJP-Lok Shakti combine, which annexed 16 of the state's 28 seats. The only consolation for the Janata Dal was the victory of Deve Gowda from Hassan.

As per the details available from the poll results, besides winning, the Lok Shakti has cut sharply into the votes of Janata Dal, thereby helping the Congress win the seats in nine of the 10 constituencies where it contested.

Dal nominee A Siddaraju was the only candidate who was able to withstand the onslaught of the Lok Shakti in Chamarajanagar (SC) and he won the seat ultimately with a comfortable margin. Lok Shakti nominee Susheela Keshavamurthy polled just 75,165 votes and came third.

While the Lok Shakti won Dharwad South, Chikkodi, and Bagalkot, the Congress party, benefitting from the feud between the Janata Dal and Lok Shakti, saw its candidates win in Raichur, Koppal, Bellary, Chitradurga, Chikballapur, and Bangalore North.

State Lok Shakti Chief Jeevaraj Alva (Bangalore North), noted actress of yesteryears Jayanti (Chikballapur) and former city police commissioner P Kodandaramaiah lost to the Congress candidates. But in all the six places where the Congress tasted success, the Lok Shakti candidates polled considerable votes, thereby also blocking the prospects of the Janata Dal nominees.

Hegde stuck to his pledge of finishing off Deve Gowda politically. In fact, the Lok Shakti's formation has its roots in the personal animosity between the two leaders, which has cast its long shadow on the electoral front of Karnataka for over a decade now.

The 1998 Lok Sabha elections also showed that whenever these two leaders had fought the elections jointly, the Janata Dal and the erstwhile Janata Party had performed creditably at the hustings. The two leaders were mainly responsible for ousting the Congress regime in the state in 1983 and installing the first ever non-Congress government headed by Hegde, with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hegde and Deve Gowda parted ways following differences of opinion and again came together due to political compulsions, thanks to the mediatory efforts of former prime minister Chandra Shekhar.

However, the union was shortlived and their relations reached a nadir when S R Bommai replaced Hegde as chief minister when the latter was forced to quit office in connection with telephone tapping of important personalities.

When Hegde formed the Janata Dal, Deve Gowda chose to remain in the Janata Party. He got elected from the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency as a candidate of his mentor Chandra Shekhar's Samajwadi Janata Party.

The two leaders then once again buried their hatchet and worked together in the 1994 assembly elections. Hegde went to the extent of projecting Deve Gowda as the chief ministerial candidate in that elections and personally did not contest the state elections to avoid any speculations of a possible feud for for the post of chief minister.

The move saw the party bouncing back to power and Deve Gowda became chief minister. Deve Gowda was further strengthened when the party won 16 of the 28 seats in Lok Sabha elections, but unfortunately for the Janata Dal, the rivalry between the two continued.

It finally reached flashpoint when Deve Gowda got Hegde expelled from the Janata Dal after he became prime minister following Hegde's vituperative remarks on Deve Gowda. Consequently, Hegde chose to trudge his own path and founded the Lok Shakti.

Elections '98

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