Balwant Singh Rakkha was a Fiji Indian medical doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and a member of the House of Representatives

House of Representatives (Fiji)

The House of Representatives is the lower chamber of Fiji's Parliament. It is the more powerful of the two chambers; it alone has the power to initiate legislation...

 of Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

 representing the National Federation Party

National Federation Party (Fiji)

The National Federation Party is a Fijian political party founded by A.D. Patel in November 1968, as a merger of the Federation Party and the National Democratic Party...

 (NFP), but he is best known for his strong support for the former leader of the NFP, Sidiq Koya

Sidiq Koya

Siddiq Moidin Koya was a Fijian Indian politician and Opposition leader. He succeeded to the leadership of the mostly Indo-Fijian National Federation Party on the death of the party's founder, A.D. Patel, in October 1969, remaining in this post until 1977...

 and the split caused within the NFP when he was rewarded by Koya for his loyalty by being given a seat in a constituency where he was a virtual unknown.

Rakkha was born in Tavua in 1941 and went to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 to study medicine. He returned to Fiji after fourteen years and established a practice in Ba

Ba District, Fiji

Ba is a district situation on the North Western part of the island of Viti Levu in Fiji. The name Ba is also used for a province, a tikina , a town and a river. Ba district comprises the areas surrounding Ba Town and includes the Fijian administrative tikinas of Ba and Magodro. Ba district is in...

. He joined the NFP in 1975 and was the President of the Ba branch from 1977.

When the Lautoka

Lautoka

Lautoka is the second largest city of Fiji and the second largest in the South Pacific. It is in the west of the island of Viti Levu, 24 kilometres north of Nadi, and is the second port of entry in Fiji, after Suva. Lying in the heart of Fiji's sugar cane growing region, it is known as the Sugar...

 Indian Communal seat

Communal constituencies (Fiji)

Communal constituencies have been the most durable feature of the Fijian electoral system. In communal constituencies, electors enrolled as ethnic Fijians, Indo-Fijians, Rotuman Islanders, or General Electors vote for a candidate of their own respective ethnic groups, in constituencies that have...

 became vacant in April 1984 following the resignation of the former leader of the NFP, Jai Ram Reddy

Jai Ram Reddy

Jai Ram Reddy is an Indo-Fijian statesman, who has had a distinguished career in both the legislative and judicial branches of the Fijian government...

, Rakkha was selected to contest the by-election for the NFP. Davendra Singh

Davendra Singh

Davendra Singh was a Fiji Indian small businessman and politician who came into prominence when he challenged and defeated the official National Federation Party candidate in a by-election in March 1985....

, 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

Fiji Labour Party

The Fiji Labour Party is a political party in Fiji, which holds observer status with the Socialist International. Most of its support at present comes from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. Timoci Bavadra. It is...

 (FLP).

For the 1987 general election, the NFP-Labour Coalition

NFP-Labour Coalition (Fiji)

NFP-Labour Coalition was the coalition of the National Federation Party and Fiji Labour Party under the leadership of Timoci Bavadra, formed in 1987 to contest that year's general election. The coalition won the election with 28 seats in the House of Representatives to the Alliance Party's 24...

 chose him as a candidate for the Ba Indian Communal Constituency which he won easily, but was a member of Parliament for a month when the military coup of 1987 put a temporary halt to his political career.

In 1994 Ba East/Tavua Rural Indian Constituency and lost narrowly to his Fiji Labour Party opponent.