The BJP Core Committee has decided to fight the next city corporation polls in Belagavi on party lines. The party will filed its nominees on party ticket, MLA Abhay Patil said in Belagavi on Wednesday.
He was speaking at the swearing-in ceremony for new party office-bearers at the Maratha Mandir here.
He said that BJP candidates would win in large numbers, paving the way for a BJP nominee becoming the Mayor of Belagavi.
This is a very interesting development for Belagavi, where the city corporation elections have never been fought on party lines. In all the past elections, candidates filed nomination papers as independent candidates and after elections, formed groups based on their language affiliations.
There were Kannada councillors, Marathi councillors and Urdu councillors. The Mayor was thus elected on the grounds of language. Pro-Marathi and pro-Kannada organisations celebrated the victories of their respective Mayors. There have never been attempts by any party, be it the Congress or the BJP, to field candidates on party symbols. The former Mayor Sambhaji Patil and Congress leader Anil Potdar tried to float a Sarva Bhashika Vichar Vedike to bring councillors of various linguistic background together, but that did not last long.
Mr. Patil’s statement assumes significance in this background. If the BJP succeeds in fielding candidates on its symbol, it will make fundamental changes in the way politics is done in the city. At the swearing-in ceremony, the former MLA Sanjay Patil took charge as the BJP rural district unit president and Shashikanth Patil took charge as the BJP urban unit president. BJP State unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel, Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Kore and others were present.
