VIJAYAPURA: Intense campaigning by cabinet ministers in rural parts of the Sindagi Assembly segment yielded overwhelming results for Bharatiya Janata Party with party candidate Ramesh Bhusanur winning by a whopping margin of 31,088 votes.
Bhusanur secured 93,865 votes, Ashok Managuli of Congress 62,680 votes and Naziya Shakeel Ahmed Angadi of JDS lost the deposit as she got only 4,353 votes. The winner, Bhusanur, said, “I never expected that the people would give me a lead of over 30,000 votes. At least 4,000 people from the Muslim community have voted for me.”
From the beginning, BJP focused more on rural areas than urban parts. The party had formed seven teams, with each being given charge of one zilla panchayat. Each team was headed by either a cabinet minister or a senior party leader.
The party had asked cabinet minister to campaign in the segment to take care of caste calculations. Minister Govind Karjol and six-time Parliamentarian Ramesh Jigajinagi were given the responsibility of Dalit community, MLA Laxman Savadi was in to attract Lingayat Ganiga votes, Minister CC Patil and MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal to consolidate Lingayat-Panchamasali votes, Ministers Byrati Basavaraj and MTB Nagaraj to seek Kuruba votes and Ministers V Somanna and Shashikala Jolle to capture other Lingayats and women votes.
Gopal Naik, a political analyst, said, “BJP banked on Ganiga, Talwar, SC/ST and other traditional votes. They have succeeded in caste mathematics. Also, BJP engineered the campaign better at the grassroots level than Congress and JDS.”
Though Congress candidate Managuli did not win the seat despite securing over 60,000, it is quite remarkable, considering that the party had not managed more than 25,000 votes in the last four Assembly polls. Gopal Naik said, “In the first place, opting for Ashok Managuli, who migrated from JDS, did not go well within the party. This was one of the major factors that led to Congress’s defeat.”
He said, “Talwars were unhappy and the party also failed to get its traditional votes, mainly from minority communities. However, it is a good sign that Ashok secured over 60,000 votes.”