Did Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti candidates upset the plans of national parties in Belagavi district?

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.

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.