Karnataka - Bidar   

Madakatti is BJP Bidar chief

Staff Correspondent

BIDAR: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State leadership has appointed Baburao Madakatti as the party's district unit president for three years. The move ends the three-month stalemate over who will head the party unit.

Mr. Madakatti, who is a long-time RSS worker, does not belong to any of the factions in the party unit. His contacts with party leaders in Bangalore and New Delhi are believed to help him sail through the current crisis in the party. Mr. Madakatti, who hails from Bhalki taluk, has taken on various party positions earlier. He was party president earlier but his electoral venture in the 1994 Assembly elections did not pay off.

Senior workers observed that factionalism had dealt a blow to the party that had won the Bidar Lok Sabha seat five times in a row. Efforts by the State leadership to find a leader for the party failed and two meetings called in the last three months to discuss the issue had to be called off midway. Members of factions led by outgoing president Prakash Khandre, and former MLA Gundappa Vakil had differences and party observers Shashil Namoshi, K.B. Shanappa and others could not come to a conclusion.

Cane growers

Farmers will attack sugar factories in the district if they do not buy sugarcane at the previously promised price, he said . He was speaking to presspersons before taking charge from MLA and outgoing president Prakash Khandre. All three factories are headed by Congress leaders and they have got together to harass farmers, he alleged. The factories were delaying payment to farmers or refusing to buy produce from them, he said.

The factories which had agreed to pay Rs. 1,100 a tonne of sugarcane, were now saying they would pay in three instalments.

Some of them said they would not release the money till the Government came out with a clear loan waiver policy, he added.

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