Karnataka - Gulbarga   

Can Subash Guttedar create history?

By T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA, MARCH 24. Aland is all set for an intense contest as B.R. Patil, Working President of the Janata Dal (Secular), will take on Subash Guttedar of the Congress in all likelihood in this Assembly constituency.

The election will decide the political future of Mr. Patil. Mr. Guttedar, an excise and Public Works Department contractor, defeated him in the 1994 and 1999 elections. Those contests were intense.

The Lingayat and Scheduled Caste voters have a decisive say in the constituency, which nestles on the Maharashtra border. Mr. Patil, then a Janata Dal candidate, lost the 1994 elections by a margin of over 18,300 votes. In 1999, when he contested as a Janata Dal (United) candidate, the margin was just over 2,000 votes.

Mr Patil, who was a close associate of the former Chief Minister, the late Ramakrishna Hegde, won the seat in the 1993 elections. He was defeated here in 1985. He distanced himself from Hegde and joined forces with the former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, after the merger moves of the Janata Dal factions failed.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left the seat to the Janata Dal (U), which is yet to announce its candidate.

The former wants to get as many votes as is possible in the constituency because it falls under the Bidar Lok Sabha Constituency.

Mr. Guttedar contested as the Karnataka Congress Party candidate in 1994 and the Janata Dal (S) candidate in 1999. This election is crucial to prove his sway over the voters.

He had the backing of the Backward Class, Scheduled Caste and Muslim voters in the last two elections.

He may find it difficult this time with the erosion of the vote bank of the Congress in the constituency.

Also, the Lingayats in the constituency, who were divided in all previous elections, are united now.

The Adi sub-sect has buried its differences with the other sub-sects of the community. The only threat to Mr. Patil's hopes of getting the Lingayat votes this time will be from the Janata Dal (U) and its ally, the BJP, which has the support of the community. If the Janata Dal (U) also fields a Lingayat candidate, Mr. Patil will have to work hard to gain support of the voters of the community, who form about 38 per cent of the population in the constituency. Senior politicians such as Ramachandra Veerappa, D.B. Kalmankar, Chandrasekhar Patil, A.V. Patil and Sharanabasappa Dangapur had represented the constituency.

It has a history of not electing a candidate more than twice.

The candidates who had won consecutive elections in the constituency are Mr. A.V. Patil (Janata Party), Mr. Dangapur (Congress) and Mr. Guttedar.

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