BJP candidate Sharanu Salagar, who was a personal assistant (PA) to two MLAs and a Zilla Panchayat president, is now an MLA after winning the Basavakalayan Assembly seat which fell vacant following the demise of Congress MLA B Narayanrao. Narayanrao had died of Covid-19 complications last year.
Salagar defeated Congress candidate Mala B Narayanrao by a margin of about 19,000 votes. While Salagar had polled 70,554 votes, his nearest rival Mala B Narayanrao managed to get 50,108 votes
Sharanu, who was born in V K Salagar village in Kamalapur taluk of the district, is an MSc and MEd holder. He was appointed as a primary school teacher in 2002. At the same time, he worked as a personal assistant to the then MLA Revu Naik Belamagi. Sharanu was also the personal assistant of Zilla Panchayat president from 2004 to 2011, and Jewargi MLA Ajay Singh for a year in 2013.
He was promoted to high school as an assistant teacher in 2011 but he resigned in 2014 to join the Congress.
Miffed over not getting a ticket to contest from Chinchansur Zilla Panchayat constituency in Aland taluk in 2016, he quit the Congress and joined the BJP. He was then appointed as BJP’s Kalaburagi rural mandala president and campaigned for Basavaraj Mattimud in the 2017 Assembly polls.
Differences cropped up among the BJP workers in Gulbarga rural assembly constituency and the segment was also reserved for the Scheduled Caste candidate. Being a Veerashaiva Lingayat, he thought he can’t nurture a political future in the segment and shifted his politics to the Basavakalyan constituency and continued to work for the party there. His wife Savitri was the supervisor of a hostel run by the Social Welfare Department. Later, she passed the KAS examination in 2016 and became the tahsildar of Basavakalyan. She has now been transferred.
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