From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, May 21: Karnataka’s prominent farm leader and former Union minister in the A B Vajpayee ministry Babagouda Rudragouda Patil died in Belagavi on Friday.

He was admitted to a private hospital due to fluctuations in his blood pressure about a week ago and breathed his last in the hospital.

The 80-year-old leader became a leading person in the Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sangha (KRRS) headed by late Prof M D Nanjundaswamy, and got elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from Belagavi and Dharwad Rural constituencies in 1989. When he quit his Dharwad Rural seat after the election, Prof Nanjundaswamy got elected from the seat.

He later parted company with Prof Nanjundaswamy’s KRRS and joined the BJP. He got elected to the Belagavi Lok Sabha seat in 1998 and was made a Minister for Rural Areas and Employment in the second Vajpayee ministry

He had represented the Belagavi Lok Sabha constituency in 1998 as a BJP nominee and served as the rural development minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s cabinet

Patil was at the forefront of the farmers’ agitation against the new farm laws. He took out a tractor rally to the Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi in protest against the union government. He gave a call to farmers to defeat the BJP that had passed `anti-farmer laws’.’’

He quit the BJP in early 2000 to join JD(S). But he quit the JD(S) in 2013 and concentrated on organising farmers.

But he supported the Congress in the 2021 Belagavi by-polls, declaring that this was a means to send a message to the Narendra Modi regime for its anti-farmer policies.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and Mining and Geology Minister Murugesh R Nirani have condoled the death of Babagouda Patil and described his death as a big blow for the farmer movement in the State.