Kalaburgi, May 23: Congress veteran M Mallikarjun Kharge, who had never lost any election since the beginning of his political career in 1972, is trailing behind BJP candidate Umesh G Jadhav by a huge number of votes in Kalaburagi Lok Sabha constituency.
As per the Election Commission India data, at 1.30 p.m., Mr. Kharge was trailing behind Mr. Jadhav by 70,450 votes. Mr. Kharge had polled in 3,15,414 votes, compared to Mr. Jadhav’s 3,85,864 votes. Mr. Jadhav has been consistently maintaining the lead right from the first round of counting.
Mr. Jadhav came to the counting centre set up at Gulbarga University campus well before the strong rooms, where the loaded Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were kept, opened at 8 a.m. on Thursday. He was present during the opening of the strong rooms in the presence of Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer R. Venkatesh Kumar and continued to be in the counting centre. Mr. Kharge was nowhere to be seen in the counting centre.
Mr. Kharge, who won all the 11 elections in a row – 9 Assembly elections and 2 Lok Sabha elections, began his winning streak in 1972 when he contested from Gurmitkal Assembly constituency. He continued to represent the constituency in the Assembly till 2004. When the Constituency, which was reserved to Scheduled Castes (SCs) later became a General constituency in 2008 Assembly elections, he shifted to neighbouring Chittapur that had just become SC-reserved constituency and won.
After BJP assumed power in the State in that election, he resigned from his Assembly membership to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Kalaburagi and won with a slim margin of just 13,404 votes against his immediate rival Revu Naik Belamagi of BJP. He served as the Minister of Labour and Employment and Minister of Railway in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet during the second term of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre.
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he again won from Kalaburagi against the same candidate of the same party by improving his winning margin to 74,733 votes. After the Congress suffered a humiliating defeat, he was the party’s Leader in Lok Sabha when National Democratic Alliance led by BJP assumed the power with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister. He was later made as the Chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at the Centre in 2018.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he faced a tough fight from BJP’s Umesh Jadhav, whom he had nurtured politically.
Mr. Jadhav, a medical doctor by profession and former employee at Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), was brought to the politics by veteran Congress leader late N. Dharam Singh. Later, he gained the support and confidence of Mr. Kharge as well and got the Congress ticket to contest Assembly elections from Chincholi segment in 2013 and won. In 2018 Assembly elections also, he got Congress ticket and won the polls for the second time from Chincholi.
When he was denied a ministerial berth in the Congress - JD(S) coalition government led by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Mr. Jadhav rebelled against the party leadership, especially against Mr. Kharge by unleashing a bitter verbal attack. He alleged that the Congress veteran was suppressing all the leaders in the party to clear the way for his son Priyank Kharge, Social Welfare Minister in the coalition government. He later resigned from his Assembly membership and joined BJP at a public meeting addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kalaburagi on March 6. The BJP rewarded him by offering a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election against Congress veteran Mr. Kharge from Kalaburagi segment.
The Kalaburagi constituency has witnessed a high-voltage campaign with a host of national and State leaders from both the parties campaigning for their respective candidates and emerged as one of the key Lok Sabha constituencies in 2019 to catch the national attention.
Comments
Add new comment