BELAGAVI: Even as political parties continue to produce several dynamic young leaders who are capable of winning big elections, a select few politically influential families continue to garner Lok Sabha tickets in several constituencies.
There are instances of some families getting the ticket from Congress for Lok Sabha and Assembly elections for decades in Belagavi and Chikkodi constituencies.
A typical trend by Congress to promote just one or two families in many constituencies that began in the late 1960s continues till now in the district. Former Union Minister late B Shankaranand contested nine LS polls from Chikkodi, while SB Sidnal four times from Belagavi.
For the Chikkodi Lok Sabha seat, Congress relied on the Shankaranand’s family for 32 years, starting from 1967 till 1999. Shankaranand contested nine elections, won seven of them, and lost two. His son Pradeep Kanagali contested and lost one election. From 1998 to 2009, Ramesh Jigajinagi won three elections from Chikkodi, once on a JDU ticket and twice as a BJP candidate. Shankaranand and Jigajinagi held the Chikkodi seat for nearly 43 years.
From the Belagavi Lok Sabha seat, Congress fielded SB Sidnal four times in a row from 1980 to 1991 and he remained an MP for 16 years. After the emergence of BJP in early 2000s, the saffron party relied completely on the family of Suresh Angadi, who got the party ticket four times (2004 to 2019) and won all the elections. After his death, the party again allotted the ticket to his family, this time to his wife Mangala Angadi in 2022.
Several youth leaders and loyal party workers from both Congress and BJP in Belagavi and Chikkodi are upset over this continued trend of depending on the select one or two politically influential families to face the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The Congress leadership is keen on having a member from the Jarkiholi family as its candidate in Chikkodi in the upcoming general elections, even as the family already has three MLAs and one MLC at home.
The Grand Old Party depends on the family of Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar in Belagavi LS constituency, where her son Mrinal is the frontrunner for the party ticket. Hebbalkar’s brother Chennaraj Hattiholi is the sitting MLC from Belagavi.
Again in this election, BJP is expected to give the ticket from the Belagavi constituency to one of Angadi family members or to Jagadish Shettar, who is the father-in-law of Angadi’s daughter.