The Hindu : Karnataka News : Just another battle for `Solillada Sardara'?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Just another battle for `Solillada Sardara'?

By T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA, APRIL 5. "Solillada Sardara'' (a chieftain who has not tasted defeat) is the title admirers of the Public Works Minister, N. Dharam Singh, have given him. For, Mr. Singh, in a career of nearly four decades, has not been defeated in any election.

He is trying to set a record by entering the Assembly for the eighth consecutive term since 1972. However, the Opposition parties are keen on denying him another win.

Mr. Singh, who started his career as an independent corporator in the Gulbarga Town Municipal Council in the 1960s, first contested on the Congress ticket from the Jewargi Assembly Constituency in 1972, after the then Chief Minister, Devaraj Urs, introduced new leaders from the backward classes and the Scheduled Castes into electoral politics for the Congress. Since then, Mr. Singh has managed to get the better of his rivals in the constituency.

A Rajput, Mr. Singh, through his pleasing manners and "friend of all'' attitude, has won the confidence of Lingayats who form 30 per cent of the

Electorate in the Jewargi constituency. The other major groups in the constituency are the Scheduled Castes (19 per cent), Muslims (12 per cent), Kabbaliga (nine per cent), and Kuruba (10 per cent). Rajputs are only a minor group.

The Janata Dal (Secular) has given a new twist to the contest by fielding a relatively newcomer to politics, Mukdappa, former member of the Karnataka Public Service Commission, with an eye on Kuruba and Kabbaliga votes. The party feels Mr. Mukdappa, who is a Kuruba, will garner votes from the community. However, the rebellion within the party ranks, particularly among Lingayat leaders in the party such as Appasab Patil and Basavaraj Gulagi, might have an impact on the prospects of Mr. Mukdappa.

A handicap of Mr. Mukdappa, who is from Sandur in Bellary district, is that he is an outsider to the constituency. b Mr. Singh, who won the Gulbarga Lok Sabha seat in 1980 by a margin of more than 1.2 lakh votes, resigned to accommodate C.M. Stephen, who had lost to A.B. Vajpayee in Delhi. He contested from the Jewargi constituency in 1972 defeating Mr. Mahadevappa Rampure by a margin of more than 6,000 votes.

His margins of victory, which were about 10,000 votes till the 1989 elections, came down in the 1994 and 1999 elections.

In the 1994 election, he defeated his archrival, S. Naribol, who contested on the Karnataka Congress Party ticket, by less than 4,000 votes. In the 1999 election, he won by only 1,961 votes against Mr. Naribol, who contested on the Bharatiya Janata Party ticket. Mr. Naribol is in the fray this time as the BJP candidate.

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