CHIKMAGALUR: As the incumbent

in Karnataka battles a formidable challenge from the Narendra Modi-led

in Polls 2018, in one corner of Karnataka the magic of Congress icon

still lives on.

Nestling in the luminous green foothills of Karnataka’s Mullayangiri ranges, surrounded by lush coffee plantations is scenic

or “little daughter’s town”. This is from where Indira Gandhi, routed in the post-Emergency General Elections of 1977 and thrown out of office, chose to contest again in October 1978, in the historic Chikmagalur by-election. "Give your vote to your little daughter," was one of her slogans.

Today residents of Chikmagalur take great pride in their Indira connection. “There is no political leader today to match Indira Gandhi,” asserts local businessman Rajendra Saklecha who remembers Indira’s 1978 election vividly four decades ago. “Chikamaglur saw Indira Gandhi’s `Maarujanma’ or rebirth.”

The Chikmagalur victory was a turning point for Indira. In November 1978 she returned to parliament within a year of her defeat, defeating her Janata Party rival Veerendra Patil by 70,000 votes . “There was a fever among all of us here in Chikmagalur at that time,” recalls Venkatesh Naidu, a young voter then, now a hotelier in Chikmagalur town, “it was like a festival in which we were all swept up. We all felt that we in Chikmagalur have a duty to send the Prime Minister back to parliament. She had lost but was still our prime minister for us.”

Recalls Stany D’Silva a coffee plantation owner: “As a kid I recall jumping over walls just to get a glimpse of her. The crowds were so huge, people from all walks of life were pouring in from all corners and my mother was worried I would get lost in that huge crowd.”

Indira Gandhi campaigning in Chikmagalur by election 1978

Coffee trader Cyril Rebello recalls how Chikmagalur crowds were transfixed by Indira . “She was very glamorous for us. Almost reddish in complexion, very good looking with a boy cut, yet her head always covered in a pallu. She walked everywhere very fast. Although of small build, she seemed gigantic.”

Former Congress minister and 3 time Chikmagalur MLA, Sageer Ahmed (he lost the seat to BJP’s CT Ravi in 2008) was member of Indira Gandhi’s campaign team. He recalls that she campaigned only for a month, but it was a tireless campaign. She walked through rain, rode on bullock cart, driving in an AC-less ambassador, campaigning 18 hours a day, living on spoonfuls of dry fruits and nuts and occasionally drinking juice. She would travel in a car in front, behind her came then Karnataka Chief Minister Devaraj Urs and Congress leader R. Gundu Rao. Ahmed recalls the Congress slogan of the time likening Indira to a tigress against puny enemies: “Ek sherni, sau langur, Chikmagalur, chikmagalur.”

The Janata party put up a strong campaign against Indira led by firebrand George Fernandes who put up posters saying she was a cobra who would bite voters.

“But Fernandes got his choice of wildlife wrong,” says Ahmed, “because in rural Karnataka the king cobra is worshipped.”

Venkatesh recalls her trip to the Babu Budangere shrine. She insisted on taking off her hawai chappals and walking all the way barefoot to the shrine. But once inside the dark cave, she got scared and started saying “Unko bulao, unko bulao”, meaning call Urs.

Veteran journalist RK Upadhyay was then with the Indian Express and covered the Chikamagalur election. “Ramnath Goenka was completely against Indira and the Indian Express and Kannada Prabha went all out against her. All of us journalists were told to attack her from all angles.” Upadhyay recalls.

He says Chikmagalur was the focus of the entire press corps at the time, even BBC and international press were present. “In the end all press had to admit that she was just too popular. She was heroine of the Bangladesh war, seen as a woman with great guts and seen as champion of poor.”

Indira’s Chikmagalur campaign was masterminded by the astute strategist Devaraj Urs, then Karnataka’s chief minister and Indira loyalist. “It was Urs who asked her to contest from Chikamagalur,” says Ahmed, “ he assured her he would deliver a victory for her as Karnataka was then a Congress bastion.” However, in true Indira style the same loyalist Urs fell out of favour when he dared to challenge Sanjay Gandhi and was expelled from the Congress in 1979. Indira’s intolerance of strong state leaders cost the Congress dear.

Sandeep Shastri, well known TV face and political analyst was then a politically active university student. He recalls how popular Devaraj Urs was for the young, as the first Karnataka politician who broke the Lingayat-Vokkaliga dominance of Karnataka politics and built a wide backward caste alliance, created land reforms and was seen as a catalyst of change.

As a youthful volunteer Shastri had plunged into the Janata campaign to oppose Mrs Gandhi and the Congress. He recalls going from door to door to tell people about the Emergency excesses and the crushing of democratic rights by Indira. “But the people just would not listen to us. She was their `indiraamma’ and they felt it was their duty to send her back to power.”

Veteran Chikmagalur resident A.R Shareef was the driver of Indira’s autorickshaw. Standing up on a roofless rickshaw she navigated her way through narrow lanes to meet plantation workers and labourers in Shareef's auto. “Plantation workers and poor had all benefitted from the housing scheme that the Congress had given us. We had been allotted homes under the Indira housing scheme, she was good for us poor people.” And what was it like to be Indira Gandhi’s auto driver? “She would keep standing up out of the auto, and waving and saying namaste. Every time she saw groups of women she would say, unke paas chalo. She spoke in Hindi and didn’t know any Kannada.”

For decades Karnataka was a Congress fortress winning 24 out of 28 Lok Sabha seats even in the post Emergency elections of 1977 when the Congress scored zero in North India. Lingayats who today form the backbone of the BJP were once staunch Congress loyalists with Congress president S. Nijalingappa, Congress CM Veerendra Patil hailing from that community.

But the 1980s were a turning point as a Ramakrishna Hegde led Janata party consolidated the anti Congress vote. In Chikmagalur the Congress decline has been sharp. In Chikmagalur, the Congress decline has been sharp. In 2013, BJP won in 2 out of 5 assembly seats here, JDS won 2, leaving only one for the Congress. The sitting Chikmagalur MLA is BJP’s CT Ravi and MP of Udupi-Chikmagalur is BJP’s Shobha Karandlaje.

For the Congress now, Karnataka has become a do or die battle. In their moment of adversity, Indira Gandhi’s party may well look to the Indira revival in Chikmagalur for hope. Says D’Silva, “Chikmagalur can never forget Indira Gandhi, after all she put us into the history books.”