Resort politics has now entered civic bodies too with some councillors of the Belagavi City Corporation — said to be loyal to district in-charge Minister Ramesh L. Jarkiholi — being shifted to a resort near Dandeli forest on Sunday, ahead of the mayoral elections on March 1.
Such a situation has arisen as Lakhan L. Jarkiholi, brother of Mr. Ramesh Jarkiholi, has started calling the shots in BCC affairs leading to heartburning in the Congress city unit.
In the 58-member council, a majority of them are Independents. Here, battle lines are generally drawn on the basis of linguistic affiliations rather than political parties.
The Marathi group supported by Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti enjoys a majority with 32 members and had been holding sway in the present council. However, some differences cropped up in the Marathi camp recently and Mr. Lakhan has been trying to take advantage of it to wrest the mayoral posts.
The post of mayor has been reserved for ‘BC-‘A’-Woman’ and deputy mayor for ‘general’ categories.
Mr. Lakhan convened a meeting of 26 councillors belonging to the Kannada-Urdu group to chalk out strategies to wrest the coveted mayoral posts from the Marathi group, at a hotel in the city last week. But only 21 councillors attended. Since senior Congress leaders Feroz N. Sait and Satish L. Jarkiholi were not invited to this crucial meeting, five of their staunch supporters chose to keep off in protest.
Following this, around 15 to 16 councillors were shifted to the forest-resort.
While the district in-charge Minister has allowed Mr. Lakhan to take decisions on the mayoral elections, Mr. Satish has said that he would attend only if the Minister himself called a meeting.
