Today morning S.Bangarappa , ex-chief minister of karnataka passed away due to prolonged illness. This obituary is to remember a colourfull statesman of our times.
Being born to middle class family of a backward class he did impossible things possible by becoming a chief minister of a state which is dominated by upper castes politically. An adage in kannada goes like this ' adu muttada sopilla' ( means there is no plant which has not been tasted by goat) , we can modify this adage to 'bangarappa serada pakshavilla' ( there is party which bangarappa didnt joined). Eventhough he changed parties and emblems, people of karnatak never let him down except two times, that becuase of his wrong calculations and overconfidence. One time he lost to Ayanur Manjunath (over confidence) and one more time to Raghavendra { yediyurappa's son} ( this time due to money and wrong calculations).
He practiced as a lawyer in his salad days and then joined samajawadi party headed by socialist Shantaveri Gopalagowda along with Kagod Thimmappa who became his arch rival in his future political career.Mr.Bangarappa had interest in classical music , not only listening to music he was a singer. He was a good badminton player who use to beat teenager in the game in his 70's also.
People use to vote a person if he is a follwer of Bangarappa in almost 40 constiuencies in Karnataka. Many peoples became MPs and MLAs because of his support. When Ramakrishna Hegde was CM of karnataka, he teased Bangarappa due to some small issue. After that Ramakrishna Hegde contested for Loksabha election from Bagalkot , Bangarappa gave B-Form a mundane congress worker and campaigned for him. Election result : Ex CM Ramakrishna Hegde lost for a congress worker.Even Ex CM BSY and K.S.Eshwarappa also got defeated in 1999 general elections against supporters of Bangarappa.
Bagarappa was a incurable optimist. His adventure of forming new regional parties and winning some constituencies were widley accoladed.
Bangarappa lost his CM post due to commenting against high command. He dared high command. Only two CMs till date have not let Karnataka down in Kauvery water issue. One is Mr.Devraj Urs and another one is none other than Bangarappa. Bangarappa passed an ordinance not to leave kaveri water, no other CMs dared to do this due to political pressures.
Even Bangarappa was not free from scandals and controversies, these made him more colourfull and charismatic. Before last month only Bangarappa got clean chit from Classic Computer Scandal which had happened during his tenure as CM. This scandal was devised by some of his opponents to tarnish his image but it never happened.
When Bangarappa contested for Shimoga Loksabha constituency on a Samajawadi party ticket after leaving BJP, whole state goverment came to Shimoge to campaign against him. Whole vidhana soudha was at Shimoga, peoples of Shimoga thought why all these people are trying to defeat him and voted for Mr.Bangarappa only. He won in a huge margin and entered parliament again.
He concern for poor , backward classes made him the champion of backward classes. He had left this earth only physically , he will remembered in the future for his charmistic character.
RIP Bangarappa.
