The Hindu : An interesting battle in Haliyal, Ankola

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

An interesting battle in Haliyal, Ankola

By Our Correspondent

KARWAR, MARCH 15. Among the six Assembly constituencies in Uttara Kannada, Haliyal and Ankola, represented by R.V. Deshpande of the Congress and Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri of the BJP, respectively, in the dissolved Assembly, are of special interest.

Haliyal constituency was formed in 1967 when Sirsi was made a reserved constituency. The late Ramakrishna Hegde, who had represented Sirsi for two terms in 1957 and 1962 as the Congress candidate, shifted to Haliyal in 1967 from where he was elected again as the Congress candidate. The constituency continued to be a stronghold of the Congress till 1983, when Mr. Deshpande, who was a close associate of Ramakrishna Hegde, defeated the Congress nominee, V.M. Ghadi, by a margin of 12,000 votes as a Janata Party candidate. Mr. Deshpande won successive elections from the constituency.

Since his entry into the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Deshpande has been a Minister whenever he was in the ruling party. Even when he was in the Opposition in 1989, he enjoyed the status of a Cabinet Minister as Leader of the Opposition. Shifting his loyalty from the Janata Dal to the Congress in 1999 did not diminish his popularity. He won the elections on the Congress ticket.

The electorate of Ankola Assembly constituency had the rare distinction of not electing the same candidate for a second term, till 1999. Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri changed this scenario when he was elected again as the BJP candidate for a second consecutive term in 1999. His rose swiftly from being the President of the district unit of the Akhil Bharata Vidyarthi Parishad to the General Secretary of State unit of the BJP. Will the voters of Ankola give him a chance to serve them for the third time?

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