Congress wins Jayanagar seat, party's tally goes up to 80 in Karnataka

The Congress on Wednesday won the election in Bengaluru's Jayanagar constituency in Karnataka, where assembly polls were held on June 11. Congress now has 80 seats in the assembly.

The Congress was initially leading over the BJP by a margin of over 7,300 votes in the first two hours of counting of votes for the Jayanagar Assembly constituency.

While Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy was leading with 27,195 votes till 10 am, BJP's B N Prahlad had secured 19,873 votes, poll officials said.

The Assembly elections were held across Karnataka on May 12, but poll in Jayanagar was countermanded following the death of BJP candidate B N Vijayakumar, who was holding the seat.

An estimated 55 per cent polling was recorded in the constituency on June 11.

BJP's B N Prahlad, brother of Vijayakumar, and senior Congress leader and former minister Ramalinga Reddy's daughter Sowmya Reddy were locked in a direct contest for the seat.

In all, 19 candidates were in the fray. Police have made elaborate security arrangement in and around the counting centre.

Ahead of polls, Janata Dal Secular had on June 5 pulled out its candidate from the contest and extended the party's support to its ruling coalition partner, the Congress. 

Winners may be losers in Karnataka’s Catch 22 endgame

It was what a film director would have described as a perfect take. “You are a beginner,” he said, grinding his teeth in simulated anger. “These are your days to learn.” A measured pause; he then emoted. “And you are insulting a former Prime Minister, a senior-most leader?” This was Narendra Modi chastising Rahul Gandhi, the Congress President. In the course of a fierce three-way election campaign, Rahul Gandhi, prompted by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, described the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) as the B team of the Sangh Parivar. Modi tore into Rahul.

The manner in which Modi leapt to Dewe Gowda’s defence raised eyebrows. The outburst cast the JD-S as a party which had the BJP’s sympathies. If this creeping murmur reached Muslim enclaves which were once Congress vote banks, a section of the Muslim vote which would otherwise have travelled towards Gowda, would check itself. This would be ironical given that the “S” in JD-S stands for secular.

After the demolition of the Babari Masjid in 1992, the disenchanted Muslim vote, walking out of the Congress fold, was waylaid by regional parties. In Karnataka, this vote took respite under the JD-S umbrella. In these circumstances, is the Congress delusion, of being the “only” national alternative, sustainable when a pan-Indian quantity like Muslims is permanently averse to it in the states? To overtly woo Muslims, Congress leadership has been advised, risks loss of Hindu vote in direct proportion to the saffron in the air. Congress avionics are now conditioned entirely by these weather conditions. Such abject dependence on the weather will have its logic. There will be occasion when the flight will not take off at all.

Now, the post-Babari shortfall has to be made up by holding on assiduously to the Hindu vote. This requires the kind of Hindu cohesion the Congress is not geared for. If it plugs upper caste haemorrhage, the lower castes flow out into regional receptacles.

It cannot do what the BJP does: Pose the Muslim as the unstated other for Hindu consolidation. The Congress simply steers clear of the Muslim like one would steer clear of trouble. It differentiates itself from the BJP, though. It has a distinct self-image: It’s the party of “good Hindus”. It does not endorse the lumpenisation associated with “street” Hindutva or the BJP.

It is a difficult pirouette. How do you project yourself as a squeaky clean Hindu without criticising excesses in the name of the cow, love jehad, Muslim youth languishing in jails without trial. National monuments like the Red Fort will now be handed to cement magnates for repair and maintenance and so on.

All right, the BJP erects its “hard” Hindu edifice “othering” the Muslims. How does the Congress delineate its “soft” Hindu outlines? Is there clarity or is it all hazy and vague?

Modi chastised Rahul for bad-mouthing Gowda. Rahul found it so important to come clean on the subject that he agreed to give his very first newspaper interview since he became Congress President in December to Karnataka’s Deccan Herald group of newspapers.

He said he was not attacking Gowda at all; he was only inviting Gowda to explicitly declare whether he was on “that side or this side”. An epic ideological battle was on between the Congress and the BJP. Choose one.

MDR-TB weighs on the minds of patients

Karnataka wants to integrate mental health care with the treatment process for tuberculosis

In India, managing the stigma of a disease often becomes more important than the actual treatment of it. And that, coupled with drug-related side effects may trigger mental health issues. Take something like tuberculosis (TB). In 2017, there were 80,000 new cases of TB in Karnataka. A diagnosis of TB spells isolation for the patients in many places still. Most people do not care that although it is contagious, it is not easy to catch TB. And if it is a drug-resistant strain, particularly, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) then there’s stigma, isolation, lack of information, and a longer medical regimen to handle.

The accepted regimen for the treatment of TB lasts for six months. But patients with MDR-TB are put on category IV drugs for two years. This includes six drugs with injections for six months and four oral pills daily for the next 18 months. The side effects of these drugs trigger nausea, vomiting and in extreme cases, suicidal tendencies. Experts in the health department point out that many male MDR-TB patients under treatment have to deal with alcohol and nicotine withdrawal symptoms too. When the usual stigma about tuberculosis adds to this, and that too for two years at least, one can imagine the state of mind the patient is reduced to.

In 2017, 18,495 people were found to suffer from drug-resistant TB in Karnataka. Of them, 1,182 had MDR-TB. “We noticed increased numbers of MDR-TB patients coming to our counselling centres with issues related to mental health. Patients with MDR TB have to undergo a rigorous treatment schedule, which is quite cumbersome and at times, the drugs also have side effects giving rise to mental health problems in such patients,” explained Dr Rajani D, from the state mental health department. The department is considering integrating mental health care with TB treatment process.