GULBARGA: It is an irony of sorts that Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency has been represented by stalwarts, yet is one of the most backward districts in the state.
But come elections, the Sun City is the centre of political activities in the region. This time around, two politicians who haven’t faced defeat on the electoral turf take on each other, in what is turning out to be a keen contest.
Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress takes on Minister for Animal Husbandry in the BJP government, Revu Naik Belamagi. JD(S) has fielded Babu Honna Naik.
There are seven other candidates in the fray. Out of the 15 Lok Sabha elections since 1952, people here have sent Congress representatives 11 times, BJP candidates thrice and a Janata Dal nominee once. Mahadevappa, Sidramreddy and Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi of the Congress and B G Jawali of the BJP were elected for two consecutive terms each from this constituency.
TWO CHIEF MINISTERS
Veerendra Patil who hailed from this district became chief minister twice, while Dharam Singh belonging to Jewargi in the district had the honour of being the CM for 20 months. Kharge and Singh have held key portfolios several times under different chief ministers of the Congress since 1972.
Though such heavyweights represented Gulbarga in Parliament and state politics, nine out of the 10 taluks in the district are among the most backward and one is among the backward taluks of the state, as per the D N Nanjundappa Committee Report. The Report has put Jewargi in 174th position with regard to development among the 175 taluks of the state. Jewargi was represented continuously for eight times from 1972 to 2008, by Dharam Singh in the Assembly. The Nanjundappa Committee on redressal of regional imbalances submitted its report to the government in 2002. But nothing recommended in this report has been done so far, as the funds sought for the development of backward taluks was released only in 2008, and more than half of the funds have remained unspent.
ENGLISH NOT BELAMAGI’S CUP OF TEA
Known to be a simple man who keeps a low profile, Belamagi has one handicap that Kharge says won’t make him a good MP.
Belamagi cannot read, write or talk English. That he is an expert wrestler cannot be of much use, Kharge seems to think.
However, Belamagi counters this by asking what the Congress MPs have done in more than half a century to develop Gulbarga.
If not English, he can communicate the constituency’s problems in Hindi and Kannada in Parliament.
ANGRY CITIZENRY
It is righteous indignation, one may say, of the people in Gulbarga at the sheer ineptitude of the people’s representatives, as most of their problems have remained unsolved for decades.
Irrigation projects like Bennetora, Amarja, Mullamari and Mallabad lift irrigation scheme are only half complete, while the Bidar-Gulbarga railway line which was given sanction a decade ago, is still in the stage of land acquisition.
The long-standing demand for the establishment of a railway division in Gulbarga is still pending. There are no major industries except cement factories in Gulbarga district. The promise of establishing a food processing unit at Jewargi has remained only that. Above all, what has impeded fast-paced development in the region is the refusal of the Union government to amend Article 371 of the Constitution, so that the Hyderabad-Karnataka region gets special impetus for development with the release of sufficient funds.
Capping all the above problems is that most of the localities in Gulbarga city are facing an acute drinking water problem. The story is the same in other parts of the district. To make matters worse, in some pockets of the district, people suffer from fluorosis, due to the fluoride content in the water.