An account of how Belgaum got Kannadiga Mayor

BELGAUM: The Belgaum City Corporation has former CM S Bangarappa to thank for getting its first Kannadiga mayor - something unfathomable way back then. In 1992, though the corporation was dominated by corporators of Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), Siddangouda Patil became the Belgaum mayor.Bangarappa, then CM, decided to break the unity of the MES, which was posing problems to the state government on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute. As a ploy, he announced the Hidkal Water Supply scheme to the city to help it tide over the water scarcity. This helped him win over then mayor Sambhajirao Patil of MES, who eventually became close to him. A proposal was made to install a Kannadiga as Belgaum mayor, for which Bangarappa wanted credit. A police officer Karigouda was instrumental in bringing five MES corporators to the Kannada faction, which Siddangouda Patil won by a wafer-thin margin of one vote. Bangarappa has another distinction to his credit: the first CM to be feted by Belgaum City Corporation. Until then, the MES would call a bandh whenever a CM was to visit the district.Never one to tolerate an affront to Kannada and Karnataka, the former CM and Vatal Nagaraj once went to Delhi to urge then PM Indira Gandhi to implement the recommendations of Mahajan Commission on Belgaum.