Coorg Assembly was constituted in 1924 and the only election was held in 1951

Though reduced to two Assembly segments after the 2008 delimitation, the hilly district of Kodagu from where the Cauvery takes its birth has a royal pedigree and boasted of its own Legislative Assembly to frame law for the local region and the people.

What is more, Coorg (as the district was then called), which was merged with Mysore State in 1956, also had its own Chief Minister to govern the province from 1952 to 1956.

The Legislative Assembly of Coorg was constituted in 1924 and the first and only election was held in 1951. The members represented 18 constituencies, which had 24 seats as six of the constituencies had to elect two members each.

The constituencies were Sanivarasanthe (2 seats), Somwarpet north and south, Fraserpet, Sunticoppa (2 seats), Mercara town, Murnad, Mercaranad, Srimangalanad (2 seats), Hudikeri, Berriathnad, Ponnampetnad (2 seats), Virajpet town, Virajpetnad (2 seats), Ammathinad, Siddapur (2 seats), Napoklunad, and Bhagamangalanad, according to the Election Commission of India data.

Of the national parties, only the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India were represented and 15 seats were won by the INC and Independents won 9 seats. While the 15 councillors represented the prevailing majority view that Coorg should merge with Mysore, the 9 Independents were against the merger. There were 60 candidates in fray and the number of voters was 1,38,440 of whom 87,947 exercised their franchise (63.53%).

According to the district gazetteer published by the State government, the Indian Constitution recognised Coorg as a Part C State and thus it was entitled to posses a responsible government. This came into vogue in 1952 and the post of Chief Commissioner also continued and C.M. Poonacha, who was elected to the Coorg Legislative Assembly from Berriathnad, was the first and only Chief Minister of Kodagu.

When the State Reorganisation Commission recommended the merger of Coorg with the new Mysore State, Coorg became one of the districts on November 1, 1956 and Poonacha became a Minister in the S. Nijalingappa Cabinet.

He later became a Rajya Sabha member (in 1964) and was elected as MP from Mangalore Lok Sabha seat in 1969 (Kodagu was then attached to the Mangalore Lok Sabha constituency) and went on to hold different portfolios, including that of Minister of Railways.

C.P. Muthanna, son of Poonacha, recalled that there were hundreds of administrative entities, including princely States, at the time of Independence and they wanted to merge them into larger States to create a more cohesive administrative unit. “Since my father was the Chief Minister of Coorg at that time, there were many — keen on maintaining Coorg’s distinct identity — who imagine it was my father responsible for merging Coorg with Mysuru State.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by R. Krishna Kumar / Mysuru – April 29th, 2018