Chikmagalur Lok Sabha seat to vanish from electoral map

The historic Chickmagalur Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka, which gave late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a “political re-birth”, is all set to disappear from the electoral map of the country.

After losing to Raj Narian in Rae Bareli in 1977, Indira Gandhi won the by-election from this picturesque Lok Sabha constituency set amidst coffee and tea plantations during 1978. Her victory against the then Janata Party candidate Veerendra Patil by a margin of 77,333 votes had not marked her political re-birth, but also believed to have changed the course of national politics.

But, the Delimitation Commission, which is redrawing the contours of Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies in Karnataka, has proposed to disband the Chikmagalur Lok Sabha constituency and distribute its Assembly constituencies to neighbouring Lok Sabha segments of Shimoga, Hassan and Udupi.

Though an all-party delegation has submitted a memorandum to the Chairman of the Delimitation Commission Kuldip Singh to retain the constituency, the politicians are skeptical about the Commission accommodating its request.

Unlike the Congressmen, who are sentimental about the Lok Sabha constituency, the voters of Chikmagalur are apathetic about the Delimitation Commission’s move to disband the constituency and merge its parts with neighbouring Lok Sabha constituencies. For, they ignored an all-party call for a shut-down of Chikmagalur district to protest the disbanding of the Lok Sabha constituency.

It may also be noteworthy to mention here that Chikmagalur Lok Sabha constituency did not exist during the first three general elections held India. The voters of the region were either part of neighbouring Hassan or Shimoga. Chikmagalur district became an independent Lok Sabha constituency only in 1967.