Delay in naming candidate worries Congress workers

DHARWAD: The

delay

by Congress in announcing its candidate for Dharwad

Lok Sabha

seat has left party workers in a quandary. While BJP workers have finished the first round of meeting voters, Congress cadre is still wondering how to go ahead.

Dharwad

will vote on April 23, which means only five weeks are left for campaigning. “Let anybody be given the ticket. The high command should announce the name at the earliest so that we can start preparations. Without knowing who will be the candidate how can we go ahead?” said Vasant Arkachar, who has been in Congress for the last two and half decades. For loyal Congressmen dreaming of recapturing Dharwad which was a Congress bastion for four decades, the uncertainty over the candidate in each election has become a major setback.

Contesting an election involves huge expenditure and no aspirant will start campaigning unless he is officially assured of the ticket. “Once we start campaigning with the official nod from the party, we must spend money on party workers every day. Even if party workers are not very demanding, the costs run into lakhs as the constituency is spread over several assembly segments. If the party gives the ticket to someone else at the last moment, all our efforts go in vain. Hence, no aspirant starts campaigning till they get the ticket. This means we get little time for campaigning whereas the BJP candidates would have completed their second round of campaigning. This is one of the reasons why Congress has not been able to re-capture this constituency,” said an aspirant.

Bastion no more
D P Karmarkar who was health minister in Nehru’s cabinet was elected twice from this constituency in 1952 and 1957. Sarojini Mahishi who was a minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet won from Dharwad North in 1962, 1967, 1971 and 1977. Mahishi shifted to Janata Party and lost to D K Naikar of the Congress in 1980. Naikar went on to hold the fort in 1984, 1989 and 1991.

Naikar’s dream run came to a halt in 1996 when business tycoon Vijay Sankeshwar entered the fray as BJP candidate. Sankeshwar won the election by defeating his closest rival Shankaranna Munavalli of Janata Dal by a margin of 40351 votes. Naikar had been pushed to third place. Sankeshwar won again in 1998.

Former legislative council chairman Veeranna Mattikatti was the Congress candidate in the 1999 election against Sankeshwar. His candidature was announced at the last moment and yet Mattikatti came a close second to Sankeshwar.

The changed political equation within BJP made Sankeshwar quit the party prior to 2004 elections paving way for Prahlad Joshi to fill the slot. Joshi won by 83,078 votes against B S Patil. Subsequently, Joshi has emerged victorious in 2009 and 2014 winning against Manjunath Kunnur and Vinay Kulkarni respectively.