E. Tukaram from Sandur, B.S. Anand Singh from Vijayanagar and B. Nagendra from Ballari (ST) have done a hat-trick by winning three Assembly elections successively.
T.H. Suresh Babu, nephew of B. Sriramulu and close associate of G. Janardhan Reddy, mining baron accused of indulging in illegal mining and also in the cash-for-bail deal, was unlucky when J.N. Ganesh of Congress, not only avenged his defeat in the previous election but also blocked the former from creating a hat-trick.
Mr. Tukaram, belonging to the Lad group, despite strong opposition from the BJP, with Karthik Ghorpade, scion of Ghorpade royal family, in the lead, retained his seat for the third term. He defeated D. Raghavendra by a margin of 14,010. In the 2013 election, Mr. Tukaram, in the absence of a strong opposition (BJP had split into three) had won with a margin of 34,631 votes, against the Janata Dal (S) candidate. Both of his mentors Anil Lad and Santosh Lad, former Minister, lost in Ballari (city) and Kalghatagi in Dharwad district respectively.
B.S. Anand Singh is another candidate to do a hat-trick. As BJP candidate in the earlier two elections (2008 and 2013) he had won with big margins. But in the 2018 elections, he quit the BJP and joined the Congress and managed to win with a margin of 8,228 defeating BJP candidate H.R. Gaviyappa, a former MLA who had quit the Congress to join the BJP to register his protest against Congress inducting Mr. Singh into the party fold and fielding him as candidate.
Mr. B. Nagendra is another lucky person. . Earlier, he was in the Reddy brothers’ camp and also accused of indulging in illegal transport, trading and export of ore. He had represented Kudligi once on BJP ticket (2008) and as an independent (2013) after he broke away from the group. In this election, he joined the Congress and contested from Ballari (ST) constituency and won with a narrow margin of 2,679 votes by defeating Sanna Phakkirappa, former Raichur MP and brother of B. Sriramulu.
