Karnataka - Bidar   

Congress losing ground in Bidar Assembly segment?

BIDAR: The Congress is losing ground in Bidar Assembly Constituency, going by its performance in the previous four elections.

Besides groupism and selection of wrong candidates, communal disturbances have had an impact on the party’s performance as minority voters hold key in the segment.

The Congress won elections in 1957, 1962, 1972, 1978, 1982 and 1985. However, it has lost the elections whenever there were communal disturbances.

Congress had to pay a heavy price in the 1967 when violence hit the district. Two-time Congress MLA Maqsood Ali Khan was defeated by the Bharatiya Jana Sangha candidate Chandrakanth Sindhol in the elections. After violence in the district in 1989, Congress candidate Mohammed Laiquddin lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narayanrao Manhalli. He was defeated again in the 1994 elections by Bahujan Samaj Party’s Zulfikar Hasmi.

Sources in the Congress told The Hindu on Sunday, “The party’s poor performance from 1989 is an indication that it had lost the confidence of the minorities.”

The Congress won the 1982 byelections through Moshin Kamal. Mr. Laiquddin won the 1985 elections. However, in 1983 elections its candidate was defeated by Mr. Manhalli, they said.

The party fielded Bandeppa Kashempur in the 1999 elections. However, he was defeated by Rameshkumar Pande of the BJP.

Fielding a woman candidate in the 2004 elections also did not yield the desired results for the party in the segment as its candidate Rafat Matheen secured only 4,343 votes, they said.

The sources attributed this to selection of “wrong” candidate.

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