These posters can be seen everywhere in Hubballi – on electricity poles, at bus stops, on billboards. They became increasingly spiky and numerous, taking over nearly every lamppost near Büdnar, a residential area in the southeast of the city. The formats vary slightly, but they all have one thing in common: a photo of 23-year-old Neha Hiremath. They all screamed the same thing – “Justice for Neha.”
At 4:30 pm on April 18, Neha Hiremath, a first-year master’s student in computer applications, was walking towards the college gate of BV Bhoomaraddi campus of KLE University of Technology. Her mother was waiting to pick her up at the door. On the way, the young woman was accosted by 23-year-old Fayaz Khondunaik, a former classmate who had dropped out of school. Kondunek brandished a knife and stabbed Shiremas six times as CCTV footage captured images that shocked the country. He fled but was arrested later that day. Hiremath was rushed to hospital but succumbed to his injuries.
Karnataka has seen massive street protests and candlelight vigils. Hiremath comes from an influential family – her father Niranjan Hiremath is the MP from the Hubballi Dharwad Municipal Corporation. Within hours, the killings took a political and religious turn. Khondunaik is a Muslim and Hiremath is a Hindu. This sparked talk of “love jihad,” a term without legal or government sanction often used by Hindu right-wing groups to describe relationships involving Muslim men and Hindu women.
In the three weeks since, the shocking murder of Shiremas has been talked about extensively on the campaign trail by the BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a rally in neighboring Belagavi on April 29: “What happened to our daughter on Hubballi University campus has shocked the entire country. They don’t value us like Ni The lives of such daughters. All they care about is their vote bank…Law and order has deteriorated drastically since the Congress government came to Karnataka.” The death has become a major issue for the BJP. One of the most poignant events in the Lok Sabha bastion movement.
Karnataka is no stranger to political battles between religions. In the state, Tipu Sultan’s history remains hotly contested on the campaign trail. Hijab-wearing female students in educational institutions have triggered riots for nearly two years; even a cosmopolitan urban center like Mangaluru has a history of moral policing tinged with religious conservatism.
However, the row has brought into the spotlight a number of divisive public issues – many of which revolve around dubious claims such as “love jihad” – fueled by fringe groups and increasingly entering the political mainstream, and their Destructive impact on local social fabric.
politics
Hiremath’s two-storey house in Bidnal is accessible only through a maze of narrow alleys, all at right angles to each other. To its left and right are rows of homogeneous two-story homes—flat concrete terraces overlooking endless stretches of farmland at the grimy end of the city; some with sugar cane stalks, others with sunflowers swaying gently in the summer breeze.
Since April 18, there has been an endless stream of tourists passing through the narrow alleys of Büdnar. BJP president JP Nadda arrived on April 21 and Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived 10 days later. Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah arrived on April 25 and state Women and Child Development Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar on April 20, two days after the death.
In the first days after his daughter was killed, a heartbroken father spoke out about what he believed was a case of “love jihad,” accused state police of botching the investigation and praised Modi for mentioning his daughter’s case.
Congress urgently took damage control measures and stressed that Kondunaik had been arrested and the investigation was ongoing. On April 23, after Siddaramaiah spoke to him on the phone and visited various ministerial delegations, Hiremath seemed to back down and apologize for his remarks against the state government. “I was skeptical about the investigation, but it turns out the police did a good job. I apologize for my remarks, which were the result of misinformation,” he said.
Hours before the Dharwad polls on Tuesday, Shiremas went a step further and sought votes in favor of the Congress, accompanied by minister Laxmi Hebbalkar.
But the incident itself has attracted political attention.
“In the Neha Shiremas murder case, we found direct evidence of the love jihad we have been talking about. Today, all Hindus have become alarmed. The Congress has adopted too much appeasement policy towards minorities. “This is the scene wherever the opposition party is in power,” said BJP chief Lingraj Patil. ” tell HTadding that it was the biggest issue in the local campaign.
The Congress party accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of politicizing the issue. “Nothing should be politicized, especially when religion has nothing to do with crime. A similar incident happened in Mysore and the attackers were not Muslims… This shows that the BJP has no other problem to fight these elections,” the state said. Grand party leader Amaan Sait told HT.
The dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party
If electoral history is any indication, voters in the twin cities of Hubballi and Dharwad, which lie at the heart of the Dharwad Lok Sabha constituency, needed little convincing to vote for the BJP. The party has won this seat since 1996, when it was known as Dharwad North. After 2008, the seat was renamed Dharwad and was held by Union Minister Pralhad Joshi.
Local election observers point to a seminal event that permeated religious politics a few years later in 1991, setting the stage for the BJP’s dominance. Dharwad was ruled by the Congress party from 1977 to 1996. But the early 1990s was a period of political turmoil in India. The Babri Masjid was demolished and the Mandir political wave swept across the hinterland. In Dharwad, the situation took a different form, with some kind of custody battle taking place at the local Idgah Maidan.
Until then, open spaces in the city center were primarily used for Muslim gatherings, apart from various uses such as parking and makeshift markets. But for two years, between 1992 and 1994, the Bharatiya Janata Party loudly called for opening Maidan to various communities, especially Hindus. The ban was imposed on August 15, 1994 by the nervous state government then run by the Congress party, but BJP leader Uma Bharti and her supporters defied the order and tried to force the rise flag. Riots ensued and police opened fire. Six people died.
The BJP has emerged victorious in every Lok Sabha and Assembly election since then. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Joshi won the Dharwad seat with a margin of over 2 lakh votes; while in the Assembly elections, the BJP retained Hubbali Dharwad West and Hubali Dharwad Central seats – two of the three city seats in the region. Jagadish Shettar, a six-time MLA and former chief minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party, switched to the Congress party from the BJP, but he lost to the first-time candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The gap was wider than in previous races he had won. He has now quietly returned to the BJP.
“The people of this constituency have been voting for the BJP across communities and on issues like Hindutva for decades. This time there is the additional factor of the Ram temple and now the Neha Shiremas murder case, ” said a local resident who did not want to be named.
A senior Congress leader admitted that Shiremath’s murder could damage the party, especially at a time when the state government seeks to focus on social security, which has been implemented since 2023, and the BJP’s history There is a sense of unease within the BJP, the oldest vote bank. Lingayat. “After all, Hiremath is a Lingayat,” he said.
local equation
The summer of 2023 will be a trying time for the BJP in Karnataka. It lost its only state government south of Vindhia, with seats falling from 104 in 2018 to 66 in 2023. The blame has been put on the perception that the state government has fallen prey to corruption and lacks inspirational leadership.
But for most, the start of autumn came in July 2021, when the BJP replaced Lingayat stalwart and then-President Basavraj Bommai with Basavraj Bommai Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, this is an attempt at generational change. This move backfired. The Lingayats, the largest community in the state, quit the BJP. The impact is particularly pronounced in central and northern Karnataka, especially in areas like Dharwad, which is home to nearly a quarter of the population. Congress won four of the seven parliamentary segments.
In November, the heavily criticized BJP corrected course when Yeddyurappa’s son BY Vijayendra became state unit chief, returning the party’s first family in the state to power. In the lead-up to polling day, however, there was some evidence of continued unease.
On April 8, Dingaleshwar Swamiji, a popular seer at Lingayat Shirahatti Fakireshwar Math in Shirahatti on the outskirts of Hubballi, announced as an independent candidate against Joshi, accusing him of suppressing the Lingayat community. Two weeks later, on April 23, the Prophet quit.
The BJP has brushed off Lingayat Prophet’s challenge, calling it a dastardly attempt by the Congress to split the BJP votes. “In Hubballi, the Congress tried to raise caste issues and disrupt voting patterns in these areas. But it did not work,” said Lingraj Patil.
Vinod Asooti, elected by the Congress from Dharwad, is a Kuruba and belongs to the same caste as Siddaramaiah and is also contesting for the first time. Earlier, Ashuti unsuccessfully contested the 2018 state assembly elections from the Nawalgund seat in northeastern Dharwad and served as the state assembly president for two terms. “The question for Ashuti is how he will challenge the BJP’s dominance in Hubbali Dharwad (west), currently represented by the BJP’s Arvind Bellad, and Hubbali Dharwad (Central), currently represented by Mahesh Tenginakai, both districts gave Joshi a lead of over 50,000 votes each, said a Congress leader requesting anonymity. .
Another Congress leader said AHINDA – the Kannada abbreviation for Minorities, Backward Classes and Dalits – could help the party. The leader, who requested anonymity, added: “Surveys show that Congress’s assurances are working and have had a huge impact on rural voters and women voters.”
But in Bednar’s narration, the candidates were completely absent from the conversation. Asooti or Joshi; even Modi or Siddaramaiah. Rumors and accusations surrounding the murder have deepened faith-based divisions, silenced the Muslim community, which makes up a fifth of the population, and fueled hostility.
Shanmukhappa Basavanneppa Tirlapur, a local school teacher, said: “This murder and related speculation have shocked the entire city and made us feel that no one is safe.”
“I feel like the community is being blamed for the actions of one person. It’s not our fault that murders happen… Unfortunately, I see people using this as an excuse to divide us,” said a Muslim rickshaw driver who asked not to be named explain.
The atmosphere outside Neha Hiremath’s pale yellow home is also somber. An older relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wearing a plain white shirt and a sullen look on his face, feared the coming weeks and the intense public discussion the issue would spark. “Once the voting is done, the issue will be forgotten and the loss will be borne by the families. Even now, look around you. The media has disappeared,” he said. “But our scars — the scars of our families and our communities — will remain.”