Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), the party that was dismissed by some political leaders as non-existent a few weeks ago, seems to have upset the plans of both the Congress and the BJP in Belagavi district.
As many as four MES candidates, who lost the polls, however, made it harder for others. Though candidates of the two national parties in these seats won the polls, they had to fight tougher battles than ever.
Founded in 1951, the MES is built around a single-point agenda of merging all Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka with Maharashtra.
In Belagavi North, the BJP candidate, Ravi Patil, lost to Asif (Raju) Sait of the Congress by a small margin of 4,231 votes. However, MES candidate Amar Kisan Yellurkar polled 11,743 votes.
BJP leaders say that if half of these votes had gone to the BJP, their candidate would have won by a lead of around 1,000 votes. But the Congress got the advantage of the division of votes between the two parties.
Dr. Patil, a city-based orthopaedic surgeon and political greenhorn, was banking on the pro-Hindutva vote-bank that includes Marathas, Devang community and other OBCs. However, the MES managed to get at least a portion of that vote-bank, upsetting the BJP’s plans.
A major factor for the BJP debacle here was that the BJP high command denied party ticket to incumbent MLA Anil Benake, a Maratha leader. He was replaced by Dr. Patil, a Panchamasali Lingayat.
As in other places in the State, the BJP banked heavily on the Maratha community in the last few Assembly elections and city corporation elections in Belagavi. The community leaders did not speak openly against the perceived injustice to Mr. Benake, but a large section of the voters are supposed to have voted for the MES, instead of the BJP.
In Belagavi South, BJP MLA Abhay Patil managed a comeback with a margin of around 12,000 votes. This is one fifth of his victory margin of over 58,000 votes in 2018. His main competitor was Ramakant Konduskar of the MES who obtained 64,786 votes or around 41% of the 1.59 lakh votes polled.
Mr. Patil polled 77,094 votes. Five years ago, he had polled over 84,000 votes.
That Mr. Konduskar is a pro-Hindutva leader and former associate of Sri Ram Sene founder Pramod Mutalik, added to his advantage. Mr. Konduskar parted ways with Mr. Mutalik a few years ago and founded his own pro-Hindutva outfit, SRS (Hindustan).
Belagavi South is considered a Hindutva citadel. The constituency was carved out during the delimitation exercise in 2008. Since then, only MES or BJP legislators have represented it.
The two-way fight in Belagavi South pushed the Congress nominee, Prabhavati Mastmaradi. to the third place. Ms. Mastmaradi polled 13,015 votes or around 8% of the votes. She is set to lose her security deposit as she did not get 16% of the polled votes.
Congress MLA Lakshmi Hebbalkar, who got re-elected from Belagavi Rural, was among those with large victory margins. She got a lead of over 56,000 votes over her BJP rival Nagesh Manolkar. But she had to contend with MES nominee R.M. Chougale who polled over 41,000 votes or around 21% of the total votes.
Ms. Hebbalkar registered more than 1.06 lakh votes, while Mr. Manolkar obtained over 51,000 votes or 26% of the total 2.04 lakh votes polled.
Analysts believe that the MES made it difficult for the BJP to get majority votes as it ate into the Maratha vote-bank.
In Khanapur, the MES’ influence has been indirect and subdued. The victorious BJP nominee, Vithal Halgekar, has been a strong MES supporter in the past. He defeated Congress MLA Anjali Nimbalkar by over 54,000 votes. Dr. Nimbalkar polled over 37,000 votes or 23% of the 1.6 lakh votes polled.
Mr. Halgekar obtained over 91,000 votes or 57% of the votes cast. The MES candidate, Muralidhar Patil, on his part, polled 9,671 or 6% votes.
Meanwhile, Janata Dal(S) nominee Nasir Bagawan polled 15,600 votes or around 10%.
