In a hut, a former CM’s son fasts to chart Independent course

A two-hour potholed drive from Davangere, next to a scenic lake in Channagiri, Patel has set up “headquarters” in a ramshackle, hand-built thatched hut. And he hasn’t ventured out to a single village or to address a single rally. Instead, Patel is on a fast, which will last till the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections are announced.

Though baffling, the engineering graduate’s campaign against “buying of votes” has voters and even his opponents’ supporters streaming in from villages around to meet the “enlightened” politician.

Patel won the Assembly elections under the JD(S) banner in 2004, but quit the party and resigned as an MLA in October when the Gowdas failed to keep up their end of the power-sharing agreement with the BJP, dissolving the government.

While his opponents are frenetically on the move, campaigning from village to village, with the second phase of polling just four days away, Patel serenely sips on honeyed water with some lime. “I abhor this practice of buying votes by dispersing alcohol and money before the elections. I want to cleanse the system, and to do that, I have to cleanse myself,” he says.

Patel has imposed similar restrictions on his other candidates.

“They can campaign how they want without using money power. For the full campaign they have been given only Rs 10 lakh,” Patel says.

Even his opponents’ supporters visit him often for blessings. “I am from the Congress and will not vote for you sir, but you have my complete respect for conducting your campaign this way,” a Congress worker told him on Monday. Patel replied: “Respect is always good, but better when it manifests itself as votes.”

Incidentally, it was his present Congress opponent, Vatal Rajanna, who as an Independent had bested his father J H Patel in the 1999 elections in his home constituency. In 2004, Patel defeated Rajanna, using a campaign not too different from the present. “Even in 2004, I did not roam from village to village, but held a padyatra across the constituency. I walked 48 km, and...