The Congress’ move to put up Mamata Nichani against H.D. Kumaraswamy in Ramanagara/m has attracted attention for all the wrong reasons. But as Johnson T.A. writes in the Indian Express, the coming contest recaptures a bitter rivalry between two of Karnataka’s foremost non-Congress leaders: Mamata’s father Ramakrishna Hegde and Kumaraswamy’s father H.D. Deve Gowda.
Hegde’s ascension to the chief minister’s gaddi in 1983 sowed the seeds of the rivalry between Hegde and Gowda but three specific incidents during the Janata rule are believed to have blown away the semblance of civility between the two.
# The first was when Hegde chose to nominate his then family lawyer Ram Jethmalani to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. Gowda and his supporters within the Janata Party resented the choice of ‘an outsider’ and threatened to boycott voting on the day of the elections.
# The second incident — the proverbial one that broke the camel’s back — came soon after when Hegde ordered a Corps of Detectives inquiry into allegations that Gowda as a minister allotted over 50 government sites to members of his family on the basis of allegations made by a BJP leader from Gowda’s home district of Hassan.
# The third incident is believed to be Hegde’s decision to nominate S.R. Bommai as his successor over Gowda in 1988 when Hegde decided to step down as chief minister accepting moral responsibility for tapping the phones of senior leaders in the state.
Read the full article: Play it again, Karnataka
churumuri 
It is not exactly correct and at as a matter of totaly unfair to both Gowda and late Hegde to link what has Congress done now to the feud between the two.
The Congress tactics of playing upon the feuding relations between the two to prop up Hegdes daughter against son of Devegowda in Ramnagar, to say is the most stupid thing ever done.
It only shows how desperate the Congress is do. Is the party so afraid of the Gowda clan that it seeks totake umbrage under the unconfirmed astrological predictions of the vulnerability of the Gowdas siblings agains the women opponents in the hustings.
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Funny why only the Deve Gowda RK Hegde duel is being highlighted… DG has back stabbed literally everyone in the Karnataka Political Arena.. from Bangarappa, SR Bommai, RV Deshpande, MP Prakash, Siddaramiah, PGR Sindhia …. everyone else except his sons :D… For DG everyone is disposable except his family..
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What about the incident when the rowdy sons of Dryaabe Gowda dragged Hegde out of Vidhana Soudha(because he refused to step down from CM post) holding him by collar, tore his clothes and beat him black and blue!?
Dryaabe Gowda and Sons could have become Clearing Agents for banks if they didn’t join politics.
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As if Pyaade Gowda would have been ethical if not for these incidents. Right.
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It is boring to read the same old stories of rivalry bet’ politicians like Hegde Vs Gowda and other similar things. Their personal relationship as individuals are quite different. To suceed in politics or in any business one upman ship is indeed necessary. Nobody is above that criteria. Value bsed politics, commitments are all nothing but over bloated baloons.
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As if the Yeddy’s Cheddy and Congress’s pudaris would have been cleaner if Deve Gowda had not been a backstabber. huh.
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