The Hindu : A Congress stronghold wrested by the BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

A Congress stronghold wrested by the BJP

By Rishikesh Bahadur Desai

BIDAR, FEB. 24. Bidar is one of the four constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes in the State and is known to re-elect its representatives.

Ramachandra Veerappa, senior-most member of the dissolved Lok Sabha who has been elected six times, has changed parties four times. Narasinga Rao Suryavanshi "Hulla'' and Shankar Deo Balaji Rao of the Congress were both sent to the Lok Sabha three times each by the people of Bidar.

The constituency is made of eight assembly segments — Aurad, Bidar, Bhalki, Humnabad, Basavkalyan, and Hulsoor in Bidar district, and Aland and Kamalapur in Gulbarga district.

In the 1999 election, Mr. Veerappa (BJP) got 3,52,221 votes against 1,98,188 votes polled by his nearest rival, Mr. Suryavanshi (Congress). Shankarao Doddi of the Janata Dal (Secular) secured 1,12,423 votes. The Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP's) Subhash Sikandarpur polled 49,802 votes, and 19,045 voters favoured the National Congress Party's Basappa Kalwadi. There were 11,87,089 voters including 6,04,791 men and 5,82,298 women.

The number of voters in each of the Assembly segments as per the 2001 Census is: Aurad: 1,78,116; Bhalki: 1,52,659; Hulsoor: 1,62,766; Bidar city: 2,20,486; Humnabad: 1,80,833; and Basavkalyan: 1,78,534. The district has 854 voters from the services. The total number of voters in the district, according to the 2001 Census, is 10,73,394. An update on the number of voters in Aland and Kamalapur is not available. In the 1999 election, there were 1,26,034 voters in Kamalpur and 1,30,465 in Aland.

Political parties estimate that Bidar, Humnabad, and Basavkalyan have a high number of Muslims and other minority communities. Marathas are in strength in Aurad, Basavkalyan, Bhalki, and Hulsoor. Kurubas and Kabbaligas, who are included in the list of Scheduled Tribes in the district, form a significant portion of the population in Bidar, Humnabad, Aland, and Kamalapur.

In the first election in 1952, Shouqat Ulla Ansari, a resident of Uttar Pradesh and close associate of Jawaharlal Nehru, represented Bidar, which was then part of the Hyderabad State. In 1957, Gulbarga and Bidar were merged to form a double-member constituency with a general candidate and a reserved candidate. Mahadevappa Rampure and Shankar Deo filled those two slots, respectively.

The idea of constituting double-member constituencies was dropped and Bidar was made a separate, reserved seat for Scheduled Castes before the 1962 elections. Mr. Veerappa was nominated by the Congress then and again in 1967. He joined the Janata Party and contested as a Bharatiya Lok Dal nominee in 1971 and 1977, only to lose to Shankar Deo of the Congress. He was also a member of the Congress (Organisation) for some time. Mr. Veerappa was sent to the Lok Sabha as the BJP nominee in 1991. He repeated his performance in 1996, 1998, and 1999. Mr. Suryavanshi became the youngest member of the seventh Lok Sabha by winning the election in 1980. He also won in 1984 and 1989. Voters in Bidar have favoured Congress candidates in nine of 13 elections.

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