GULBARGA: North Karnataka, which helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerge as the single largest party in the last elections, has been given short shrift in the Ministry expansion with four BJP legislators from the region inducted into the Cabinet.

The Janata Dal (Secular)-BJP Government has proved that it is no different from its predecessor in giving a raw deal to the region.

While the Janata Dal (S) has been comparatively liberal in nominating Ministers from the region, only four of the 12 BJP Ministers are from North Karnataka.

The bulk of support for the BJP came from the Bombay Karnataka sub-region. But the party has favoured those elected from South Karnataka and its MLCs at the cost of North Karnataka.

On the other hand, six of the ten Janata Dal (S) ministers are from North Karnataka despite the party doing poorly in the region.

But the discrimination is more palpable in the distribution of portfolios. Both the parties have kept the major portfolios away from the ministers from North Karnataka. The portfolios allocated to the ministers from the region are Primary and Secondary Education (Basavaraj Horatti), Revenue (Jagadish Shettar), Labour and Minority Welfare (Iqbal Ansari), Agriculture Marketing (Sharanabasappa Darshanapur), Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (C.M. Udasi), Youth Services and Sports (Alkod Hanumanthappa), Food and Civil Supplies (Govind Karjol), Agriculture (Bandeppa Kashempur), Social Welfare (Balachandra Jarkiholi) and Tourism and Textiles (B. Sriramulu).

However, it is the denial of the Water Resources portfolio that has done the most injustice to North Karnataka. Major irrigation covers irrigation projects in the two major river basins, Krishna and Cauvery. While there is not much to be done in the Cauvery Basin, the State has much to do to harness its share of waters in the Krishna Basin, a large part of which is in North Karnataka.

But the Water Resources portfolio has been given to K.S. Eshwarappa of the BJP.

The BJP, which has been in the Opposition for years, has shown poor understanding of the crucial issues pertaining to the Krishna and Cauvery basins. The party does not seem to have a clear concept of the issues involved. How the party handles this crucial sector remains to be seen.

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