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Belgaum may go to BJP

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Belgaum

The ruling Janata Dal may lose the Belgaum seat to the Bharatiya Janata Party again, thanks to total chaos among its local workers.

Babagouda Patil, the BJP candidate who had pushed the Congress to the third place in 1996, is going about his campaign in a very organised manner. The party's alliance with the Lok Shakti is an additional factor as Ramakrishna Hegde is popular in the Belgaum region.

But an equally important factor is the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, championing the border issue of merging Marathi-speaking regions with Maharashtra. It has a good support base in parts of the constituency and will definitely pull away quite a few votes from the BJP.

Though S Bangarappa's Karnataka Vikas Party is not a popular force in the region, its existence is enough to disturb the Congress prospects. But they seem to be in an amiable mood since the Congress has won 11 legislative council seats recently, leaving only 12 to the JD.

Despite Hegde's influence over the district, the biggest in the state, the Congress had never lost the seat since 1951, with 1996 an exception. While the JD swept the poll 18 months ago in Karnataka, the Congress had to lose its deposit in Belgaum! Congressmen do not deny the JD wave, but equally blame the leadership for not giving ticket to four-time MP S B Sidnal for the sole reason that he was a strong critic of then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao.

Congress candidate Prabhakar Kore, who was rejected as an 'outsider', could poll hardly 15 per cent votes. Sidnal has now been brought into picture again. Besides Sonia Gandhi's entry, the retrun of their local leader has also enthused the cadres.

But Sidnal has a major headache in Patil, whom he had defeated by 46,000 votes in 1991. Patil was then a Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangh candidate. The Hindutvawadis have suddenly become a force in Belgaum from the time Patil shifted over to the BJP in 1996.

The BJP had begun poll preparations six months ago when L K Advani visited the district town.

"With young cadres coming to the party, we are definitely in a position to shift minimum 25 to 30 per cent votes from the JD", claims Anant Kulkarni, who heads the media cell. Patil had polled around 11 per cent less last time than Shivanand Koujalgi, the JD MP.

That is not possible, say JD activists, when the BJP does not hold even a single assembly segment of the total eight. While five are with the JD, two are with the MES and one with the Congress.

"It does not matter. The JD took roots here only because of Hegde. He is with us now", claims Kulkarni.

"But his cadres are still with us", counters Abhay Haldi, the city JD president. He agrees that Hegde will affect the JD prospects -- but not by more than 10 per cent. He seems to be confident of Koujalgi's successive victory, saying that people will reward him for the development works he has done during the UF regime.

"What the Congress could not do in the last 36 years, we have achieved in 18 months. The MP's funds have been fully utilised", he claims.

But he does not deny that Koujalgi's last-minute volte face on making Gokak a centre of a new district-in-the-offing would hamper his prospects. The issue of creating a separate district is still unresolved because of a dispute between the people from Gokak and Bailhongal.

But it may not be raked up this time as all the three major candidates are from Bailhongal and, incidentally, belong to Lingayats, the largest minority, having a population of around 260,000 in the constituency. Even the Marathi-speaking people have their allegiance to different parties, at least in the Lok Sabha poll.

Community politics has very little role to play here since the 1.19 million people are more or less equally divided into Lingayats, Maratha, Jains, Shepherds, Brahmins, Muslims, Sindhis, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Sonar, Scheduled Caste, Roman Catholics and Protestants.

RELATED REPORT:
Belgaum has nil independent candidates!

Elections '98

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