N.Karnataka misses the bus again in Vajpayee ministry expansion

By M. Madan Mohan

HUBLI, MAY 28. It has been a hat-trick of misses for Northern Karnataka as far as getting representation in the Union Council of Ministers is concerned.

Not many people had much hope about region being represented in the mini expansion of the Vajpayee Ministry on Saturday. Therefore, the disappointment was not as great this time.

When Northern Karnataka missed the bus when the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, formed the ministry after 1999 parliamentary elections, the Karnataka unit of the BJP argued that the lapse would soon be rectified. When Northern Karnataka was left out during the second expansion as well, the State BJP leaders had no explanation to offer publicly, but in private they admitted that they too were unhappy.

The region has missed the bus for the third time in a row. No one expects the Karnataka BJP leaders to offer any explanation since it is now taken for granted that the present leadership in Karnataka has hardly any clout with those who matter in the BJP at the Centre. This is notwithstanding the Karnataka unit sending the party's General Secretary, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu, to the Rajya Sabha from its quota.

The representation for Karnataka in the Union Council of Ministers continues to be lopsided. The three from the State in the Union Council of Ministers -- Mr. Ananth Kumar, the Minister for Tourism and Culture; Mr. V. Dhananjay Kumar, the Minister of State for Finance; and Mr. Srinivas Prasad, the Minister of State for Civil Supplies -- represent the Bangalore-Mysore-Mangalore belt. The entire northern part of the State has been ignored. It looks as though the region which contributed three MPs from Bidar, Bijapur and Dharwad North, hardly exists in the eyes of the BJP leadership at the national level.

This has introduced a sense of alienation in the minds of the people. The three ministers who represent Karnataka at the Centre can hardly be expected to understand the aspirations of the people of Northern Karnataka.

Though the State BJP leadership at one time appeared to be disappointed with the raw deal given to Northern Karnataka, there has hardly been evidence of the State leaders impressing upon the Central leadership of the need to do justice to the region. If the State party leadership has not shown any interest, it will be futile to blame the Central leadership for neglecting Northern Karnataka.

Another interesting development has been that the State BJP, which once portrayed itself as a champion of Northern Karnataka, has suddenly become reticent. For all the election promises of undoing the injustice to the region, the State BJP leaders appear to have become silent.

Northern Karnataka has a number of problems which require the attention of the Central Government. For example, it has not yet been able to resolve the tangle over the location of the headquarters of the South-Western Zone of the Railways in Hubli instead of Bangalore. Apparently, none of the Union ministers from Karnataka have bothered to follow up the matter, since they do not belong to the region.

The question of speeding up the work on converting the 200 km- long BIjapur-Bagalkot-Gadag section to broadgauge, and accelerating work on the new line between Hubli and Ankola, have been left unattended. The Railway Budget has only made a meagre allocation for the two projects. The Kottur-Harihar new railway line project, sanctioned when Mr. Jaffer Sharief was the Railway Minister, has hardly made any headway.

The Railway Workshop has been waiting to be modernised, and the promise of the then Prime Minister, Mr. H.D. Deve Gowda, to set up a wagon manufacturing unit is yet to be acted upon. The list of the things waiting to be done by the Central Government for the region is endless and the BJP does not seem to have any time for a backward region such as Northern Karnataka.

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