Karnataka Assembly Elections: Siddaramaiah vs V Somanna — who will win Varuna?

Karnataka Assembly Elections: Varuna is one of the 224 constituencies of Karnataka. It is a part of the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha constituency and was formed following the delimitation process in 2008. The constituency is in the news this election as former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah is contesting from this seat.

Varuna constituency: Congress vs BJP

Since 2008, Congress has a strong hold in Varuna and for this year’s Assembly election the party has nominated former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for contesting. In 2013, Siddaramaiah had defeated Kapu Siddalingaswamy of Karnataka Janatha Paksha by a margin of 29641 votes and in 2018, Yathindra S of Congress had won the seat by defeating T Basavaraju of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party candidate V Srinivas Prasad defeated Indian National Congress contender R Dhruvanarayana by a margin of 1817 votes from the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha (MP) Seat.

Varuna is an important constituency for Congress as the outcome of the elections will determine the future of Congress in the state to a large extent, as its fortunes are directly related to the popularity and mass appeal of former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is contesting from the constituency.

Varuna constituency: Key Candidates

In this year’s election, Varuna is set to witness a big clash between the Congress' Siddaramaiah and the BJP's V Somanna. While Siddaramaiah is likely to retain the Lingayat voter base in Mysuru, Somanna will also use his Lingayat mutt appeal. Around 60,000 of the nearly 2 lakh voters in the seat are Lingayats, the community to whom Somanna belongs. The other key candidate in the race is former MLA, Dr Bharathi Shankar from JD(S).

Varuna constituency: Other parties and individual candidate

According to the Election Commission website, the following is the list of candidates who will contest from Varuna constituency 

-Krishnamurthy. M from Bahujan Samaj Party

- Pyarijan- Independent

- M. Mahesh- Independent 

- Chethan. E- Independent

- Arun Linga - Kannada Deshada Paksha

-Shiva. E- Karnataka Praja Party (Raithaparva)

- Dr Bharathi Shankar N. L. - JD(S)

-Mahadevaswamy .R- Uttama Prajaakeeya Party

-Dr. U. P. Shivananda- Independent

-Rajesh- Aam Aadmi Party

-K. Nagesha Naika - Samajwadi Janata Party(Karnataka)

- Ravikumar. M- Karnataka Rashtra Samithi

Karnataka Election 2023: Background and full schedule 

The Karnataka Legislative Assembly's term is set to expire on May 24, 2023. The previous Assembly elections took place in May of 2018. Following the election, the state government was first formed by the single-largest-party BJP under BS Yediyurappa - which couldn't stand the floor test in Assembly and lasted only a week. Followed by the coalition of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Indian National Congress, with H. D. Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister, which lasted 14 months before Yediyurappa and BJP returned to power in state.

The Election Commission has scheduled the date of polling as May 10, 2023 (Wednesday). The vote counting will be done on May 13, 2023 (Saturday).

Catch the latest stock market updates here. For more news on sports, politics follow Zee Business