Yellapur: BJP and Congress, which are busy knitting strategies to ensure their victory in the Yellapur Assembly by-elections, have begun caste calculations.

The constituency, which includes Yellapur taluk, Mundgod taluk and Banavasi hobli of Sirsi taluk, has 1.72 lakh voters. While the population of Havyaka voters is more in Yellapur taluk, SC, Lingayat and Maratha voters dominate in Mundgod. Banavasi hobli has a number of Namdhari and SC voters.

Though the votes of Brahmins (Havyakas), Marathas, SCs, Lingayats, Namdharis and Muslims may play a decisive role, the voters of Goulis, STs, Christians, Gangamathasta and Vokkaligas too cannot be neglected. Hence, both the major political parties have prepared a list of voters as per their caste and are trying to woo them.

Campaigning

In 2018 elections, it was the votes of Banavasi hobli which made Shivaram Hebbar victorious. Hebbar was lagging during the counting of Yellapur polling booth votes. However, he made a come back during the counting of Banavasi area votes and won by a margin of just 1,483 votes. Therefore to consolidate his position in Banavasi area, BJP candidate Hebbar has summoned Kumar Bangarappa (Congress candidate Bhimanna Naik’s nephew) for campaigning. In addition to this, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa will also campaign in Banavasi on November 24.

On the other hand, Congress is focussing on areas which are dominated by backward community voters. It has planned to campaign in such areas with the backing of its star campaigners. Accordingly, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Siddaramaiah will campaign at Kiravatti, Induru, Pala and Banavasi on November 25 and Congress leader Ramesh Kumar on November 23. Other top leaders of Congress Vinaykumar Sorke, Nazeer Ahmed, Jayamala and others will also campaign. MLA R V Deshpande will tour the constituency for one week to campaign in favour of Bhimanna.

Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy will campaign for JD(S) candidate Chaitra Gowda.