Highlights: Rahul's Janarshirvada Yatre in Mysuru

Mysuru: “Tipu Sultan, Krishnaraja Wadiyar, M Visvesvaraya and Kuvempu…they have glorified India’s name,” Rahul said in the beginning of his speech in Chamarajnagar. Rahul had a difficult time pronouncing Visvesvaraya’s name. He got it to some degree right in the third attempt. 

Rahul kept on conjuring twelfth century social reformer Basavanna, which he has done from the time he began his Karnataka tour a month ago. 

Chamarajanagar is viewed as cursed, in that it is expected that a Chief Minister who visits the town will lose power. “I needed to nix the revile. I’ve come here five times,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said and mocked BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa. “Yeddyurappa never came to Chamarajanagar dreading he’ll lose power. He got caught taking bribe. Maybe, he’d have stayed in control if he had come here,” Siddaramaiah mocked. 

Former BJP pioneer A R Krishnamurthy, son of Dalit pioneer the late B Rachaiah, formally joined the Congress during Rahul Gandhi’s rally at Chamarajanagar. In 2004, Krishnamurthy, who was then with the JD(U), had lost the Santemarahalli constituency against Congress’ R Dhruvanarayan by only one vote.