After stints with others, farmer leader Babagouda back in BJP

Party, which lost miserably in Karnataka ropes in vote pullers

Election time is also the time for defections. Former Union minister and Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha's former leader Babagouda Patil who is in the habit of changing party affiliations frequently is now back in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fold.

Babagouda returned to the BJP fold on Wednesday when he was re-inducted into the party in the presence of state president Prahlad Joshi in Hubli.

He said, he had quit the BJP as he felt sidelined in the party. "However, I have realised that only the BJP has the will to solve farmers' problems and hence I have returned to the party," Babagouda justified his shifting loyalties.

Decades down the line, farmers' leader-turned-politician Babagouda Patil was responsible for converting the once powerful Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha into a political outfit in the early '80s. Babagouda, after a stint with all major political parties had joined Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party on October 7, 2013, and was appointed resident of Karnataka State Unit of SP, replacing former DGP Shankar Mahadev Bidri.

Babagouda had joined the SP in the presence of Mulayam Singh Yadav in New Delhi.

Hailing from Chikka Bagewadi in Belgaum taluk of Belgaum district, Babagouda from a farmers' leader he went on to occupy the Union minister's post during the NDA regime and changed parties at will.

On March 25, 2013 he re-joined the BJP at the Sankalp Samavesha held at Dharwad in the evening.

In Septemeber, 2012, Babagouda had said that he was disillusioned with all political parties and hence had announced that he would he would launch a non-political organisation to fight for the cause of farmers. However, the plans did not fructify.

He had opposed the government's move to distribute foodgrain free of cost and at a subsidised price, saying such moves by the government was turning the poor idle and causing a shortage of farm hands.

Babagouda Patil, a prominent farmers' leader of the region had contested the assembly elections in the 1980s as a KRRS nominee from Dharwad rural and Kittur, and had won both seats. He had vacated Dharwad rural seat to allow M D Nanjundaswamy to enter the assembly in a by-election. He later joined the BJP and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Belgaum in 1998 to become rural development minister in A B Vajpayee cabinet. He lost the Lok Sabha elections in 1996 and 1999.

Babagouda later had a stint with both the Congress and Janata Dal (S). His converting the KRRS into a political outfit had weakened farmers' movement and resulted in disintegration of the farmers' organisation.