DAVANAGERE: In this season of water scarcity, four-time MP GM Siddeshwar has taken up the contentious issue plaguing the constituency, and pledged to fill all ponds and water bodies.
His wishlist: Solve the water crisis, address basic amenities of the city, develop Davanagere as a Smart City. Immediately after being elected, he held a meeting with officials to implement ‘Jalasiri’, a 24/7 water supply project for Davanagere city. He instructed officials to finish work on the project within one-and-a-half-years to provide continuous supply of drinking water.
He also launched the construction of roads at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore in Channagiri taluk, and laid the foundation stone for the construction of a bridge at Ammana Gudda bridge in Channagiri taluk, at an estimated cost of Rs 1.70 crore. He said he also wants to lay stress on education and construction.
But in this flurry of activity, the most important remains water: Siddeshwar instructed officials from Harihar and Honnali taluks to prepare a blueprint to fill up all ponds and water sources. While Siddeshwar may be enthusiastic about the challenge, he must also remember that he will face a huge challenge in finding a solution as all the taluks were declared drought-hit last year. It may be this MP’s last tenure, as he has already announced that he will not contest the Lok Sabha elections.
Who is Siddeshwar?
The soft-spoken and easily accessible Davanagere MP and his father, G Mallikarjunappa, ensured the first victory for the BJP in Davanagere in 1996.He belongs to an arecanut merchants’ family, and runs an engineering college in the city, and has a school at his native place Bheemasamudra.
Siddeshwar, who is related to former minister and senior Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa, defeated the latter’s son S S Mallikarjun three consecutive times in the Lok Sabha election. In the Lok Sabha elections, he defeated Congress-JDS coalition candidate H B Manjappa by a huge margin of 1,69,702 votes.
Siddeshwar is often criticised and questioned by other political leaders for getting approval at the local administrative level to start construction of a railway overbridge near Ashoka talkies, a link point for old and new Davanagere city.
Political journey
When Siddeshwar’s father Mallikarjunappa was in the BJP, he was in Congress. After the death of his father in 2003, Siddeshwar was persuaded to join the BJP by then senior BJP leader and now Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, B S Yeddyurappa and late Ananth Kumar. He contested the Lok Sabha election for the first time in 2004 and never tasted defeat since. He was Union minister of state for civil aviation and Union minister of state for heavy industries and public enterprises in the Modi cabinet.