Bengaluru: Eventually, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders succeeded in bringing scion of erstwhile Mysore Royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar into electoral politics by fielding him as the party’s nominee for Mysuru-Kodagu parliamentary seat for the ensuing Lok Sabha polls replacing incumbent MP Prathap Simha. In the Lok Sabha polls, BJP and Janata Dal Secular (JDS) have forged an alliance and have fielded consensus candidates in 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka.
On Yaduveer’s contest, highly placed sources in the Mysore Royal family told Deccan Chronicle on Wednesday that “all developments on Yaduveer’s entry into politics has happened on the blessings of Rajamata Pramodadevi Wadiyar.”
They added that the developments happened at a very quick time and the sources made it clear that Yaduveer did not approach the BJP leadership for ticket to contest Mysuru-Kodagu parliamentary seat. After hs nomination was declared by the BJP Central leadership in New Delhi, Yaduveer was away at a remote place when tried to contact him to elicit his reaction on his candidature.
Yaduveer Krishnadatta Charamaraja Wadiyar will be fighting the election from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s home district-Mysuru. Siddaramaiah belongs to Siddaramanahundi in Mysuru taluk about 20km away from Mysuru city. The Congress party is yet to announce its nominee for Mysuru-Kodagu seat.
Earlier, political parties had made futile efforts to lure Yaduveer into electoral politics and sources close to the royal family said that Yaduveer had then turned down the offer to enter electoral politics. His father late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar had represented Mysuru parliamentary seat on four occasions as a Congress nominee. He lost the 1991 Lok Sabha polls as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate and again he lost the Mysuru Lok Sabha in 2004 on a Congress ticket.
The outgoing MP Prathap Simha on his ‘X’ account congratulated Yaduveer on being made the BJP nominee and gave a call to the party men to start preparations immediately and kick start campaigning in the seat.
However, a section of the Vokkaliga community, which form the major chunk of votes in the Mysore-Kodagu parliamentary seat, expressed their ire over change in BJP nominee and staged a protest in the city on Wednesday demanding BJP to re-nominate Prathap Simha and there was also a campaign in favour of Prathap Simha over the social networking sites. Besides, some residents had made an appeal to Yaduveer over social media to stay away from electoral politics.
Yaduveer has been prominently involved in saving the heritage structures in Mysuru city such as Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building and he had lent support to the protests to save these structures from razed down. Mahadev, president of Devaraja Market Tenants Association, welcomed the entry of Yaduveer into electoral politics and stated that “such a gentleman should be in politics.”
He assured to strive hard for the success of Yaduveer in the ensuing polls and expressed confidence that Yaduveer if elected to Lok Sabha then the fight to save heritage structures such as Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building would gain strength.
