New Delhi: The Gulbarga parliamentary seat in Karnataka has become a prestige issue for Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, who is investing a lot of time and energy in the constituency for a variety of reasons. First of all, Kharge won the Gulbarga seat in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but lost in 2019 when he was the Leader of the Opposition in the Lower House of Parliament.
In 2024, Kharge faces greater responsibility to ensure a party win on his home turf. Kharge belongs to Karnataka where the Congress came to power in 2023 registering a historic win. Furthermore, Kharge is widely respected across the southern state and is leading the Congress campaign across the country as national president.
There is a personal reason as well. Kharge’s son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani is the Congress nominee in Gulbarga against BJP’s sitting MP Umesh Jadhav, who had defeated the patriarch in 2019. No wonder, Kharge has addressed several rallies in the Gulbarga region alone over the past fortnight and is again visiting the parliamentary constituency on May 4 ahead of the May 7 polling.
“The Congress chief will have an interaction with leaders of the Koli community and later address a rally in Gulbarga North on May 4,” AICC secretary in- charge of Karnataka Abhishek Dutt told ETV Bharat. While BJP’s Jadhav is banking on PM Modi’s appeal, Congress’ Doddamani is banking on the credentials of the party chief and the efforts of the state unit in mobilising support for him.
On their part, the state unit is banking on the delivery of promises made during the assembly polls as well as the 25 social welfare guarantees mentioned in the party’s national manifesto. Among the state leaders, Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge, a minister besides chief minister K Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shiv Kumar have campaigned in Gulbarga to support Doddamani, who runs several education institutions. His rival Jadhav is a known surgeon.
Both the CM and his deputy have assured a decent haul out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state. “It is a very important election for Kharge. He too has made emotional appeals this time to ensure the win of the party candidate in Gulbarga. He should not have lost the seat in 2019. But this time the situation is better and we are going to win that seat,” senior state leader Prakash Rathod told ETV Bharat.
In a recent speech, Kharge urged the Gulbarga voters that if they did not vote for the party this time, he would get a sense that there was no place for him in the area and that he could win the hearts of the people. He further urged the voters to make sure that even if they did not come to vote for the party, they should at least attend his funeral if they thought that he had done some good work in Gulbarga.
Sensing the importance of the constituency, Congress star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sought votes for Doddamani in Gulbarga on April 30 where she listed the development works done in the area when Kharge was a union railway minister in the previous UPA government.
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