GRANDSONS IN THE FRAY

Prajwal Revanna and Shreyas Patel fight for the legacies of their grandfathers-JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda and Congress veteran G. Puttaswamy Gowda-in Hassan

- Ajay Sukumaran

It's nearly 9 pm and a small crowd at the village square in Malali is listening with rapt attention to 91-year-old H.D. Deve Gowda for an hour. Malali is in Holenarasipura taluk, the pocket borough of the Deve Gowda family in Karnataka's Hassan district. Deve Gowda is campaigning for his grandson Prajwal Revanna, 34, the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate from Hassan. In 2019, the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency was the only one the JD(S) won in the near clean BJP sweep in Karnataka. The debutant Prajwal's victory wasn't surprising, for the Hassan seat had been in Deve Gowda's grip for three decades since 1991 when he was first elected to the Lok Sabha. Only on one occasion, between 1999 and 2004, was it wrested away by the late G. Puttaswamy Gowda, also from Holenarasipura. The families have long been political rivals. T