Siddaramaiah from Varuna, only hots up the CM race in the Congress camp

The Congress today, May 25 released its first list of candidates for the Karnataka Assembly Elections and put to rest speculations about where Siddaramaiah would contest from.

The first list comprising 124 candidates states that Siddaramaiah would be contesting from his safe seat in Varuna, which he had won in 2008 and 2013. In the 2018 elections, he gave up that seat for his son, Yatindra.

The Varuna seat is part of the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha seat and came into existence post the 2008 delimitation exercise.

Prior to contesting from Varuna in 2008, Siddaramaiah was a candidate from the Chamundeshwari assembly constituency. He first won from this constituency in 1983 as an independent candidate. Post this he has won on a Janata Dal ticket between 1985 and 2006. However in the 2018 elections after giving up Varuna to his son, he lost the elections from Chamundeshwari in 2018. In this election,Siddaramaiah had also contested from the Badami seat, which he had won against Shriramulu of the BJP.

Siddaramaiah going to Varuna comes as no surprise as he is vying for the post of chief minister, if the Congress comes to power in Karnataka. He in contention for the top post and is battling Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief, D K Shivakumar for the same. Shivakumar's name features in the first list released by the Congress and he would be fighting the elections from the Kanakapura seat, which is a safe bastion for him.

In the run up to the first list being released, there was speculation galore about where Siddaramaiah would contest the elections from. When he was going back and forth on the Kolar seat, there was talk that he clear about his son contesting from Varuna. However many experts had pointed out at that time Siddaramaiah is likely to take a safe seat as it would not gel well for a chief ministerial candidate to be constituency hunting. The fact that a man eyeing the chief minister's post would look shaky while constituency hunting does not go down well with his supporters and in the long run, it could damage his prospects, the experts had felt.

In the past two days, Siddaramaiah had given ample indication that he would get back to his home turf in Varuna. His son Yatindra had indicated last week that his father had been advised not to contest from Kolar. He even went on to say that he was ready to give up Varuna for his father. "If my father contests from Varuna, I will not contest from another constituency," Yatindra had said.

Siddaramaiah on the other hand had said that this would be his last election. In this regard going back to Varuna made sense for Siddaramaiah as he wants to end his political journey on a high note. Winning big in Varuna would also put him high up there to contend for the CM's seat if the Congress were to come to power in Karnataka.

This development only makes things interesting as the days go by and one could say that if the Congress were to win Karnataka, then the race for the post of chief minister would indeed be a hot one.