Karnataka bypolls: How 2 former CMs are hoping for a son-rise on home seats

At the Hubballi home of Karnataka BJP leader Basavaraj Bommai, the photo montage that greets visitors at the foyer is of the twin photographs of Bommai and his late father, S.R. Bommai, both former chief ministers of the state. The photographs are of their respective swearing-in ceremonies, 33 years apart—while Bommai Senior became chief minister in 1988, his son assumed office in 2021.
Among Karnataka’s long list of chief ministers, the only other father-son duo that can claim similar distinction of having held the top post is H.D. Deve Gowda and H.D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular). While Gowda became chief minister in 1994, son Kumaraswamy rose to the top twice—in 2006 and 2018.
Now, however, both Kumaraswamy and Bommai are eyeing an entry for their sons into the state legislative assembly, via bypolls to the assembly seats of Channapatna and Shiggaon on November 13. Both had vacated these seats in June when they became members of the Lok Sabha. Therefore, Nikhil Kumaraswamy, 36, will contest the bypoll at Channapatna as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate while Bharath B. Bommai, 35, has entered the fray in Shiggaon. While the former is currently the youth wing president of the JD(S), Bharath will be making his political debut in this election.
For Nikhil, who has faced two election defeats previously, the fight at Channapatna will be a crucial one. Back in 2019, when father Kumaraswamy was chief minister, Nikhil fought his maiden election at the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, a Vokkaliga stronghold in which the JD(S) held considerable sway. But it culminated in a high-stakes battle that went in favour of another debutant—Sumalatha, a former actor and widow of the hugely popular film star-politician M.H. Ambareesh, for whom Mandya had been home turf.
Last year, the JD(S) scion took another shot at his own home turf of Ramanagara, the assembly constituency his father had won continuously for four terms since 2004. In fact, even in 2018, when H.D. Kumaraswamy moved base to neighbouring Channapatna, Nikhil’s mother Anitha Kumaraswamy succeeded her husband as the Ramanagara MLA, thus ensuring that the seat remained within the party’s grip. But in the 2023 polls, the Congress wrested the seat, causing Nikhil a second successive disappointment.
This time around, he faces a formidable foe—C.P. Yogeshwar, a former BJP legislator whose crossover to the Congress last week has ratcheted up the stakes at Channapatna. A five-time MLA from the seat, Yogeshwar had lost to H.D. Kumaraswamy in the 2023 election. While the former got 48.83 per cent of the votes, Yogeshwar polled 40.79 per cent votes.
A victory there will not only help launch Nikhil’s political career but give Kumaraswamy the upper hand in the ongoing turf war with Karnataka deputy chief minister D.K. Shivakumar. Archrivals, Kumaraswamy and Shivakumar are both from the Vokkaliga community, a dominant caste group in southern Karnataka.
Meanwhile, in Shiggaon, Bharath Bommai faces Congress candidate Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan—the same opponent his father Basavaraj Bommai had defeated in 2023. While Basavaraj Bommai won with a 54.95 per cent vote share, Pathan had polled 35.18 per cent of the votes.
However, there has been the threat of rebellion in the Congress ranks, with Syed Azampeer Khadri, a former party MLA from Shiggaon filing his nomination papers as an Independent. Similarly, Congress leader and former MP Manjunath Kunnur too has entered the fray as an Independent. On Oct 26, Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, announced that Khadri had been persuaded to withdraw his nomination.
The BJP too had faced an initial bout of dissidence in Shiggaon when Bharath’s name was announced as candidate. “I had initially decided not to field my son in this election, but the high command insisted that I remain involved and offered a ticket to my son. They advised me to continue working here,” Basavaraj Bommai said during an election campaign in Shiggaon on October 27.
An MBA graduate from the Singapore Management University, Bharath completed his bachelor’s degree in engineering at Purdue University in 2011. According to his resume, he has been involved with eight engineering and manufacturing companies as executive director.