One of the few things that the elections to the District Central Cooperative Bank has achieved is to bring Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi and his old political rivals, the Katti brothers and the Jarkiholi brothers together, at least outwardly.
District in-charge Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi was seldom seen with Mr. Savadi in government or party events, since he joined the BJP last year. But they held a joint press conference in Belagavi on Saturday to declare that they were supporting Arvind Patil, MES leader and former MLA, against Anjali Nimbalkar, Congress MLA, in their fight for the directorship of the DCC Bank.
Mr. Savadi said that they had all decided to forget all bitterness and differences of the past and come together for the development of the district and welfare of farmers.
Both the leaders clarified, more than once, that the polls were non-political, but they were working towards an unanimous election for the sake of political harmony in the district.
They also said that they were confident of unopposed elections to 13 of the 16 seats in the bank’s board. “We are having contests only in Khanapur, Ramdurg and the wool and silk sectoral constituency, where there are multiple candidates. Polling is only a formality. We are confident that our candidates will win from there too,’’ Mr. Savadi said.
The two leaders have not been on friendly terms in the recent decades. In 2015, it was said that the Jarkiholis, despite being in the Congress, had backed the candidature of Ramesh Katti, the former MP and BJP leader, in his bid to assume the chairmanship of the DCC Bank. The former Minister Umesh Katti threw his weight behind his brother Ramesh Katti to see that Mr. Savadi lost by one vote.
The Katti brothers seemed to be in rare agreement with Mr. Savadi over his choice of the candidate for Khanapur. Mr. Arvind Patil is a known loyalist of Mr. Savadi and had faced opposition from the Katti clan in earlier elections.
Mr. Ramesh Jarkiholi announced on Sunday that Mr. Patil was his candidate and that he would be joining the BJP soon. This reveals that the Katti brothers have expressed their acquiescence to Mr. Patil’s candidature. This also meant that MES, which has been rallying around the single agenda of merging Belagavi with Maharashtra, lost one of its longest serving leaders.
DCC Bank elections have revealed once again the tacit fraternity of the Jarkiholi brothers who otherwise seem to be quarelling over political issues.
Earlier, where there were two months to go for the elections, Mr. Ramesh Jarkiholi had declared that he would abide by the decisions taken by his brother Balachandra Jarkiholi and Umesh Katti. He did not say he would accept Mr. Savadi’s nominees. He also asked Mr. Savadi to sacrifice membership of the DCC Bank Board, as he was holding a bigger position [Deputy Chief Minister]. But he came around when Mr. Balachandra Jarkiholi decided to support the nominees of Mr. Savadi. The Katti- Jarkiholi formula also included letting KPCC working president Satish Jarkiholi field some of his candidates and supporting them.
