Senior BJP members and party councillors posing with the newly elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor in front of the Ambedkar statue at the city corporation in Belagavi on Monday. | Photo Credit: P.K. Badiger

BJP leader and MLA Abhay Patil has asked the newly elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Belagavi not to engage in language politics.

Addressing the new city corporation heads, Mr. Patil asked them to govern by taking everyone along with them.

“You have to forget differences of language and other differences such as party affiliation. It is true that you are BJP members. But when you are the Mayor, you are the Mayor of the entire city and not just the BJP. Your only focus should be the development of the city and nothing else,” he said.

At the same time, he also criticised the Congress for trying to boycott polling.

Shobha Somanache was elected unopposed as Mayor and Reshma Patil was elected the Deputy Mayor after she defeated Ashwini Bhatkhande of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti.

The elections are significant as it was the first time that since the reorganisation of the States that the polls were held on party lines. All earlier elections in Belagavi City Corporation were held on the basis of language.

On Sunday, Karnataka Rakshana Vedike and other groups demanded that the BJP nominate Kannada speakers to the post.

Congress leader Sarala Satpute commented that Mr. Patil, who was instrumental in choosing the Mayoral and Deputy Mayoral candidates, had let down corporation members belonging to the backward Nekar and Lingayat castes and Kannada speakers. Both the Mayor and deputy Mayor are Marathi speakers. She suspected that the BJP leaders had played their cards only with an eye on the coming Assembly polls.

The corporation has been dominated by Marathi speakers since Independence. Kannada speakers have held the post of Mayor only five times. “We had high hopes that the BJP will choose a Kannada speaker, but we have been disappointed,” Deepak Gudaganatti, vedike leader told The Hindu on Monday.

BJP spokesperson M.B. Zirli said that the results should not be analysed on the basis of narrow parameters of caste or language. “The BJP remains a nationalist party and it does not concern itself with such factors. Our only concern is the development of Belagavi and how it can grow further,” he said.

However, he clarified that the party is taking steps to take everyone along with it in the city corporation. “Belagavi has Kannada speaking MPs. Our floor leader in the city corporation is Rajashekar Doni who is a Kannada speaker. We have to balance the equations and therefore, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor have been chosen from certain groups,” Mr. Zirli told journalists.

Meanwhile, three Congress members of the city corporation complained that they were not allowed to vote as they were delayed by two minutes. Suhail Sangolli, Khurshid Mulla and Zarina Khan sat in front of the conference hall in protest against the election officers who had closed the doors of the hall where voting was taking place.