Laxmi Hebbalkar is State women Congress chief

The All India Congress Committee has appointed Laxmi Ravindra Hebbalkar as president of the State women’s wing.  An announcement to this effect was made in New Delhi on Monday.

Hebbalkar has replaced Manjula Naidu as the women’s wing chief. Naidu was appointed president in 2010. Though the tenure of the president is five years, the services can be terminated any time, sources in the Congress said. Earlier, the tenure used to be three years.

The 40-year-old Hebbalkar is a native of Belagavi. A postgraduate from Mysore University, she is now Belagavi district rural Congress committee president. She was the first woman to become the president of the Belagavi DCC unit. She is also a member of the AICC.

Hebbalkar had not been able to get elected to Lok Sabha or State Assembly. She had unsuccessfully contested the 2013 assembly elections as the party candidate from Belagavi rural constituency and had lost to the BJP candidate when she contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Belagavi.

She was the director of Bhagyalakshmi Sahakari Sakkare Kharkhane and is alleged to have been involved in several irregularities. In view of the large scale irregularities, the factory landed in financial trouble and was eventually privatised.

Hebbalkar was appointed the party district unit president at the cost of several potential leaders. The party in the district, however, could not grow to the expected level despite overwhelming electoral response to the party across the State.