BENGALURU: Veteran Congress leader and former president of the Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha Bhimanna Khandre (103) passed away on Friday night at Bhalki in Bidar.
He is survived by two sons — Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar B Khandre and Bidar DCC Bank president Amar Kumar Khandre — and four daughters. His other son, former MLA Vijayakumar Khandre, passed away in 2019. Eshwar Khandre’s son Sagar is a sitting MP. The last rites of Bhimanna Khandre will be held at 5 pm on Saturday at Shanti Dham at Bhalki.
One of the prominent Lingayat leaders, he was suffering from age-related ailments and respiratory problems over the last few days. He had been admitted to a private hospital, but was shifted to his residence in Bhalki as per his wish recently. Over the past week, pontiffs of various mutts, ministers, MLAs, eminent personalities and leaders of different parties and others visited his residence.
A lawyer, he entered public life in 1953 after becoming the first elected president of Bhalki Municipality. He entered the Assembly for the first time in 1962 and served four terms as an MLA and two terms as an MLC. He was as transport minister in the Veerappa Moily cabinet.
In 1976, condemning forced sterilisation of youth by certain officials under the population control programme, he personally persuaded over 2,500 individuals to voluntarily undergo sterilisation on a single day.
This created a record, which was reported by the BBC at the time, stated a release from Eshwar Khandre’s office.
As a cooperative leader, Khandre served as the founding president of the Bidar Cooperative Sugar Factory and the Mahatma Gandhi Sugar Factory. He played a key role in implementing the Naranja and Karanja irrigation projects.
A freedom fighter and a participant in the Hyderabad Liberation Movement, he had opposed the atrocities of Razakars and worked to ensure that Bidar district remained part of Karnataka. He was honoured with the Suvarna Karnataka Ekikarana (Golden Integration of Karnataka) state award.
He set up Akkamahadevi College in Bidar and an engineering college in Bhalki. As president of the Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha, he increased the membership from a few thousand to over a lakh.
He often said the secret of his longevity lay in learning yoga from Sadguru Sri Nagabhushana Shivayogi of Muchalamba during his childhood, when he suffered from severe illness.