Chitradurga: Karnataka Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar is spending Tuesday in Hiriyur, a visit read in Bengaluru as the Congress government's opening move in a byelection that must be called within days.
He will launch a Rs 244 crore project to fill 16 tanks and the Gayatri reservoir in Javanagondanahalli hobli, along with a string of other works. With no MLA in place, the chief minister has taken charge of the constituency himself, officials said.
The seat fell vacant when MLA D. Sudhakar died on May 10. Sudhakar was planning minister in the previous Siddaramaiah government and a close friend of Shivakumar. Under the rules, a bypoll has to be declared within six months of a sitting member's death. That window closes on November 10.
The timing is deliberate. Once the Election Commission announces the bypoll, the model code of conduct will freeze inaugurations, so the chief minister is packing as many launches as possible into one day.
The BJP is moving too. Fresh from sweeping four Legislative Council seats with the JD(S), the party has set its sights on Hiriyur. "We will discuss the issue with JD(S) leader and Union Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy soon," state president B. Y. Vijayendra told reporters in Bengaluru after a meeting of the party's state office-bearers.
The matter came up during the first visit of BJP national general secretary and state in-charge Harish Dwivedi, who said anger against the Congress government was visible in the Council results. He asked party leaders to focus on the local body elections as well.
Vijayendra said the BJP will launch a "Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy" campaign from Kolar on Tuesday, with Dwivedi, himself and other senior leaders joining a padayatra. A similar campaign is planned in Chitradurga on Wednesday.
Hiriyur has been won once each by the JD(S) and the Janata Dal. How the NDA partners divide the seat between them is the question the next fortnight will answer.