After Ballari, BS Yediyurappa faces calls to split Belagavi district

BENGALURU: The BS Yediyurappa government’s main argument for creating Vijayanagara district from parts of Ballari is that it will help improve governance in the region. Basically, two districts are easier to administer than one large one.
Long-running public and political campaigns for new districts in Karnataka have now latched on to this reasoning to seek similar consideration for their cause. Belagavi and Tumakuru districts are much bigger than Ballari, and the demands to split them were first made two to three decades ago.
There are calls to split Belagavi, which has 18 assembly segments, into three districts — Belagavi, Gokak and Chikkodi. Successive governments have avoided the issue as there are competing territorial demands from local clans, namely the Jarkiholis, Kattis, Jolles, Pattans, Koujalgis and Hukkeris.
Tumakuru has 10 taluks and people in some corners have to travel nearly 150km to reach the district headquarters. A two-decade-old proposal sought formation of a new district with Madhugiri as its HQ. Yediyurappa has put the issue on the backburner after objections from BJP MLAs, who fear their influence will shrink if the district is bifurcated.
There is also clamour to carve out Shikaripura district from Shivamogga, Devaraj Urs from Mysuru, and Jamkhandi from Bagalkot.
In 2007, the then chief minister HD Kumaraswamy created Ramanagara and Chikkaballapura districts. Political analysts believe the move helped the Deve Gowda family retain its sway in the region amid the emergence of another Vokkaliga politician, DK Shivakumar, who represents the Kanakapura segment in Ramanagara.
According to some former and current bureaucrats, 1997 was the only time when new districts were formed because of genuine reasons of governance. JH Patel was the chief minister at the time, overseeing the birth of Bagalkot, Davanagere, Chamarajanagar, Gadag, Haveri, Koppal and Udupi districts. Bagalkot was split from Bijapur (now Vijayapura), Chamarajanagar from Mysuru, Gadag and Haveri from Dharwad, Koppal from Raichur, Udupi from Dakshina Kannada, and Davanagere from parts of Chitradurga, Shivamogga and Ballari.
“Most of these new districts have seen reasonable development since then,” said a senior official in the revenue department.
Yadgir, which became Karnataka’s 30th district in 2009 after being carved out of Kalaburagi, has not seen much progress.
B Sriramulu and G Janardhana Reddy have dominated Ballari politics. BJP functionaries believe that forest minister BS Anand Singh, who represents the Vijayanagara constituency in the district, wants a new district to establish his own turf.
“Yediyurappa has encouraged large-scale defections from other parties and brought these rebels in the BJP fold. As a result, BJP has too many heavyweights in districts like Ballari and Belagavi. All of them want a fiefdom,” said a BJP MLA from Ballari. “By splitting Ballari, Yediyurappa is helping Singh. But will he do the same in Belagavi?”
BOX:
POOR RESPONSE TO BANDH CALL
A shutdown call issued by the Akhand Ballari Horata Samiti, which has criticised the move to split Ballari district, got a lukewarm response on Thursday. Hotels and other business establishments remained open and publictransport services functioned normally.