BELAGAVI: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa's frenetic campaigning for the Belagavi Lok Sabha seat did not amount to too much, giving the BJP just a slender victory. The win in Basavakalyan, though, brings some relief to the Chief Minister, who was targeted by party leaders attempting to destabilise his government.
By leading the BJP campaign successfully in Belagavi and Basavakalyan, Yediyurappa showed that he still holds sway over the dominant Lingayat community which rallied behind him, even as the Congress fielded popular candidates. A gamble by the BJP to grab Maski assembly seat from the Congress did not pay off, and it suffered a humiliating defeat. Despite roping in sitting MLA Pratapgouda Patil via Operation Lotus last year, along with 16 other MLAs of the Congress, the BJP fielded the former by ignoring locally popular leader Basangouda Turvihal, who had lost to Pratapgouda in the 2018 election by a mere 213 votes. Eventually, Turvihal joined the Congress and defeated Pratapgouda in the bypoll.
Soon after BJP won the thriller in Belagavi by a mere 3,986 votes, Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi said the victory was the result of pro-people works taken up by the Central government and Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa in the state. "The people have paid a fitting tribute to late Suresh Angadi by voting his wife Mangala Angadi,'' he added.
Deputy Chief Minister Govind Karjol attributed BJP's victory to popular programmes launched by Yediyurappa and Modi, and said the people rallied solidly behind the party in Basavakalyan and Belagavi.
Though most of the top BJP leaders, including Yediyurappa, had repeatedly claimed that the party would win Belagavi by 3-4 lakh votes, Mangala Angadi was trailing from Round-30 to Round-80 of the counting of votes, before finally winning by a slender margin. At the end of the final round of counting of votes, BJP accounted for 4,36,868 votes, while Congress secured 4,32,882 votes.
The NOTA votes accounted for 10,563. Shubham Shelke, the candidate supported by Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), put up a good show by bagging about 1.24 lakh votes. Rallies by many pro-Maharashtra leaders, including Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut in Belagavi, in an attempt to divide BJP votes, could not stop the saffron party from finally claiming the seat. While Congress candidate Satish Jarkiholi had claimed that voters from his hometown Gokak would rally behind him in a big way, about 87,307 voters eventually went with the BJP, and 59,398 voted for Satish.
However, in Arabhavi constituency represented by his brother Balachandra, Satish bagged 71,700 votes against 55,957 votes for the BJP. Of all the votes polled in the eight assembly segments, Satish polled the highest votes in Arabhavi, while Mangala Angadi polled most in Gokak. Speaking after their mother's victory, daughters Spoorthi and Shraddha Angadi thanked voters for retaining trust in the family and voting for the party.
BELAGAVI REMAINS BJP'S BASTION
Though Belagavi was a Congress stronghold since 1957, it was the popularity of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that gave the BJP a break. Babagouda Patil won, but the Congress bounced back in 1999. Since 2004, Suresh Angadi of the BJP won four elections. He won the 2019 LS election by a record margin of about 4 lakh votes, riding on the Narendra Modi wave. He had polled 7.61 lakh votes against Congress rival V S Sadhunavar who got 3.70 lakh votes.