Hubballi: The Janata Dal (S), which succeeded in its strategy to defeat outgoing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah by entering into a tacit understanding with the BJP in Chamundeshwari, could be indirectly responsible for his win in Badami.
By fielding a Panchamasali Lingayat, the JD(S) ensured the division of the Veerashaiva-Lingayat votes between it and the BJP, and Mr Siddaramaiah's victory by slender margin of 1,696 votes.
Although it was believed that all the votes of the dominant Veerashaiva-Lingayats, who had opposed the move for independent religion status for the community, would go to the BJP, the JD(S)'s Hanumanth Mavinamarad came in third with around 24,000 votes, clearly taking away quite a number of them. This seems to have worked in Mr Siddaramaiah's favour, and come to his rescue as he was also unpopular with the Madigas, who form a large chunk of the electorate , for not accepting the Justice Sadashiva Commission report that recommended internal reservation among the scheduled castes. The Congress's strategy to rope in several Madiga leaders in its campaign does not seem to have helped it much.
The other error that Mr Siddaramaiah seems to have made is relying too much on his own Kuruba community, which has nearly 50,000 voters in the constituency, although Congress leaders claim that Ahinda and Muslim voters too helped him win.
