Balwant Singh Rakha: ke revisions ke biich ke antar
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Rekha 3:
Rakkha was born in [[Tavua]] in 1941 and went to [[India]] to study medicine. He returned to Fiji after fourteen years and established a practice in [[Ba District, Fiji|Ba]]. He joined the NFP in 1975 and was the President of the Ba branch from 1977.
When the [[Lautoka district, Fiji]] Indian [[Communal Constituencies (Fiji)|Communal seat]] became vacant in April 1984 following the resignation of the former leader of the NFP, [[Jai Ram Reddy]], Rakkha was selected to contest the by-election for the NFP. [[Davendra Singh]], a virtually unknown small businessman, managed to persuade the [[NFP Youth Wing]], which had earlier been shunned by Koya, to support him to oppose Rakkha. Singh demanded that a local person be selected by NFP for the vacant seat but when he was ignored by the Party, he nominated himself for the election. The result was a narrow win for Singh by 2209 votes to Rakkha's 2196 votes in an election in which only 4421 of the 12,260 registered voters cast their votes. The election result triggered a series of events which led to the decline of the NFP and the rise of the [[Fiji Labour Party]] (FLP).
For the [[Fiji general election, 1987|1987 general election]], the [[NFP-Labour Coalition (Fiji)|NFP-Labour Coalition]] chose him as a candidate for the Ba Indian Communal Constituency which he won easily<ref name=Howard>{{cite book |last=Howard |first=Michael |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Fiji: Race and politics in an island state |year=1991 |publisher= UBC Press|location=Vancouver |isbn= 0-7748-0368-1 | pages p.383}}</ref>, but was a member of Parliament for a month when the [[1987 Fijian coups d'état|military coup of 1987]] put a temporary halt to his political career.
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