Southern States - Karnataka   

Did insecurity prompt Sankeshwar's exit from BJP?

By A.Jayaram

Bangalore May 28. Differences with the State party leaders and the Union Minister for Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, H.N.Ananth Kumar, are stated to be the reason for the decision taken by the BJP MP for Dharwad North, Vijay Sankeshwar, to quit the party and also resign his parliamentary seat.

According to BJP sources, Mr. Sankeshwar has sent in his resignation from the Lok Sabha only to the President of the State unit of the BJP, Basavaraj Patil Sedam, and not to the Speaker, Manohar Joshi. However, he has resigned his membership of the BJP. Some of the State leaders, especially the hardcore partymen, refused to attach any importance to the resignation. Mr. Sankeshwar was a newcomer to the party having joined the organisation only in 1996 at the time of that year's Lok Sabha elections. His rise in the party was because of the enormous resources he commanded, they said.

Mr. Sankeshwar is the owner of Vijayanand Roadlines, one of the big transport companies in the State, and also the leading Kannada daily, "Vijaya Karnataka", and the recently-launched the English newspaper, "Vijay Times."

The State BJP leaders, including Mr. Sedam, were making efforts to persuade Mr. Sankeshwar to withdraw his resignation from the party.

Sources said that Mr. Sankeshwar had come to fear the possibility of Mr. Ananth Kumar changing his parliamentary constituency from Bangalore South to Dharwad North. Though elected from Bangalore South and hailing from Old Mysore, Mr. Ananth Kumar grew up in Hubli. His mother, the late Girija Sastry, was the Deputy Mayor of Hubli-Dharwad. Though elected three times in a row from Bangalore South, Mr. Ananth Kumar had in recent times faced opposition from party ranks in the State capital, it was stated. Another reason for his eyeing the Dharwad North seat is that though it is a Lingayat dominated constituency, it had in the past elected Brahmin leaders such as the well-known Congress leader and former Union minister, the late D.P.Karmarkar, and another former Union minister, Sarojini Mahishi. Mr. Ananth Kumar is a Brahmin, whereas Mr. Sankeshwar is a Lingayat.

Mr. Sankeshwar was in the last few years in the thick of the agitation supporting the various demands of Hubli-Dharwad such as the establishment of a Bench of the High Court there and on the establishment of the South-Western Railway with Hubli as the headquarters. He had climbed the platform of the Uttara Karnataka Abhivriddhi Vedike headed by the journalist, Patil Puttappa.

At one time during the agitation over the High Court Bench issue, some leaders demanded the creation of a separate State for North Karnataka. Though the railway zone was inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Railways, Bandaru Dattatreya, on April 1, Mr. Sankeshwar and others kept the agitation alive over the issue of delinking of the revenue yielding Tornagallu-Bellary-Ranjitpur section from the new zone and retaining it in the South Central Railway.

On May 8, Mr. Sankeshwar participated in a rail roko agitation along with Mr. Puttappa in Hubli on the railway section issue. Earlier, he had even threatened to hold a black flag demonstration against Mr. Ananth Kumar criticising him of inaction over the issue and also others concerning North Karnataka. BJP sources say that Mr. Sankeshwar had a narrow regional vision and was at odds with the party leadership on many issues. He had even walked out of a party meeting. Though Mr. Sankeshwar has announced that he will launch a regional party in the State, the history of those parties has been disappointing. Only the Lok Sevak Sangh, which did not call itself a regional party, had a member of the Lok Sabha from the State at one time.

The Janata Paksha launched in 1962 and even the Karnataka Congress floated by Devaraj Urs after he quit the Congress in 1979, S.Bangarappa's two outfits Karnataka Congress and Karnataka Vikas Party, and an outfit launched by A.K.Subbaiah after he was expelled from the BJP are examples of failure of regional parties to survive. Only the Kannada Chaluvaligars have survived, though their party never grew.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Chitravathi Project will go ahead: Krishna
• Extra load-shedding for nine days
• BJP MP quits party, plans to float regional outfit
• Gaur gives birth to male calf at Mysore Zoo
• `Varuna Japa' at Malpe Beach today
• Yoga to be made compulsory in Udupi schools
• Free cardiac treatment for poor children
• New postings for IAS officers
• Koujalgi in the eye of another storm
• Quota urged for SC/STs in private sector
• Did insecurity prompt Sankeshwar's exit from BJP?

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu