Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency has many peculiarities. While it was a dual-member constituency in 1957, it became a single-member constituency in 1962.
Though the present elections (2014) is the 17th LS elections (including 2 by-elections), it sent 13 members to the Lok Sabha and one member (Dharam Singh) resigned before taking oath.
When the first elections to the Parliament were held in 1957, Gulbarga was a dual member constituency and elected Mahadevappa s/o Yashavant Rao (General) and Shankar Dev (SC) as its members.
From 1962, the constituency became a single-member constituency with general category but in 2009 it became an SC reserve constituency.
In 1962 elections, the voter population was 4,13,239 but as on Janaury 31, 2014, it is 16,62,359.
In the 1962 elections, Mahadevappa s/o Yashavant Rao was re-elected to the LS from INC. In the 1971 elections, Dharmarao Afzalpurkar of National Congress (Jagivan) defeated Sharanabasappa Doddappa Appa (present Peethadhipati of Sharanabasaveshwara Samsthana) of National Congress (Nijalingappa) by nearly one lakh votes. Siddramreddy, who contested in 1974 by-elections (after the death of Dharamarao Afzalpurkar) as INC candidate, got elected and he won the 1977 general elections as well.
In the 1980 general elections, Dharam Singh, who contested as INC (I) candidate, defeated Vaijinath Patil (JNP) by over 1.10 lakh votes (Vaijinath Patil is now in Congress).
Dharam Singh resigned even before taking oath as per the directions of mentor Indira Gandhi to facilitate her close aide C M Stephan. In the byelections in 1980, C M Stephan defeated Bapugowda Darshanapur by over 70,000 votes.
In 1984 general elections, Veerendra Patil of INC was elected by defeating freedom fighter Vidyadhar Guruji by over 90,000 votes. In 1989 and 1991 general elections, Dr B G Jawali, son-in-law of Veerendra Patil, got elected from INC. In 1989, Dr Jawali defeated Abdul Hamid of Janata Dal while in 1991 he defeated BJP candidate Basavaraj Patil Sedam by a margin of 62,000 votes.
Jawali faced defeat at the hands of Qamarul Islam of Janata Dal in 1996 by a margin of over 65,000 votes and again by Basavaraj Patil Sedam of the BJP in 1998.
In 1999, Basavaraj Patil Sedam faced defeat at the hands of Congress candidate Iqbal Ahmad Saradgi by a margin of 70,000 votes. Saradgi again defeated Sedam in 2004 by over 55,000 votes. It became an SC reserve constituency after delimitation.
Mallikarjun Kharge, MLA of Chittapur resigned and contested the MP seat. He defeated Revu Naik Belamagi by over 14,000 votes.
This time there will be a contest between Kharge (Congress) and Revu Naik Belamagi (BJP). Former minister B T Lalita Naik is also contesting as AAP candidate and D G Sagar as Janata Dal candidate.