Time to decide: 95 candidates in fray for 13 constituencies in DK and Udupi

Time to decide: 95 candidates in fray for 13 constituencies in DK and Udupi

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangaluru, May 9, 2023: 60 candidates are in fray in the eight assembly constituencies in Dakshina Kannada and 35 candidates are in fray for five constituencies of Udupi district. In all, 95 candidates are vying each other in 13 Assembly constituencies in the undivided Dakshina Kannada for the May 10 elections.

The voting will be held on Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. The counting will be held on Saturday, May 13, at the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka, Surathkal.

Eight assembly constituencies in Dakshina Kannada

Dakshina Kannada district has an electoral strength of 17.37  lakh voters and 8 assembly constituencies including Mangalore City North, Mangalore City South, Mangalore (Ullala), Belthangady, Puttur, Sullia, Bantwal and Moodbidre. All these come under the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency.

Udupi district has an electoral strength of 10.29 lakh voters and 5 assembly constituencies including Udupi, Karkala, Kundapura, Byndoor and Kapu. These five assembly constituencies are part of the Udupi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha constituency.

Five assembly constituencies in Udupi District

What are the prospects for each of the major parties in Election 2023? Who will win and who will lose? The outcome is not as certain as some people think it to be. Here’s a snapshot of the prospects of each of the major contending parties in DK and Udupi assembly constituencies:

Mangaluru:
This assembly constituency, named Ullala previously, has been a Congress stronghold for the last 70 years with the BJP managing only one five-year term between 1994 and 1999. The constituency has been the fiefdom of UT Fareed and his son UT Khader with only slight changes in between. Muslims form a majority 56% of the population here with Hindus and Christians accounting for 34% and 9% respectively. Real improvements are visible in the constituency with new concrete roads, a new government hospital, an underground drainage under construction and lower crime rates.  Khader and his father before him have carefully nurtured this constituency, paying attention to the needs of not only the Muslims but also those of other communities as well. This time too UT Khader of the Congress is likely to be the winning candidate here even though the BJP and the JD(S) can be expected to put up a strong fight. But there is a twist in the tale in the form of the SDPI, which is reportedly going to put up their own candidate for this constituency. If they do so then some division in votes, which may affect the Congress adversely, can be expected.

Mangaluru South:
This is a constituency that was dominated by the Congress for 40 years and thereafter changed hands to the BJP for the next 30 years with only one stint of J R Lobo of the Congress in between. The richest constituency in Dakshina Kannada, it is the heartbeat of the district. The constituency is home to the city’s retail trade, construction industry, prime medical facilities, leading hotels, long standing educational institutions and high net worth houses. Voters in this constituency are better educated and more prosperous compared to the other seven assembly constituencies of Dakshina Kannada. There is also a fine mix of religious hues with Hindu, Christian and Muslim communities well represented. Hindu upper caste domination in the constituency has given an edge to the BJP in the last few elections. The BJP, Congress and JDS got 53%, 43% and 0.47% of the votes respectively in the 2018 election. This is in contrast to the election in 2013 when the Congress candidate  J R Lobo was the winner. This time too the Congress will be fielding  J R Lobo to take on the sitting BJP candidate  Vedavyas Kamath. The JD(S) is fielding Sumathi Hegde, though going by past trends her chances are slim. The outcome of this year’s contest is not a foregone conclusion in this high profile constituency. With no major outstanding demand from the electorate it looks like the battle will be decided on the strength of loyalty to party ideology and image of central leaders. But Vedavyas Kamath of the BJP will be in no mood to give up the seat which he won for his party in 2018. By synchronizing his work with that of the Mangalore Corporation (also under the control of his party) and the Smart City Project, Kamath has been working hard to win over even more of the electorate in his constituency.  Kamath says he has got about Rs 4750 crores worth of projects approved for Mangalore, 75% of which have already been completed, including concretizing of roads, expanding parking facilities, renovating water tanks, sports stadiums and markets. J R Lobo will be relying on his clean image as a bureaucrat and legislator to woo voters. He cities his work with the Pilikula Nisarga Dhama and Kadri Park as highlights of his tenure as legislator. His accessibility and people-friendly image is sure to make him a formidable opponent for  Vedavyas Kamath.

Mangaluru-North:

An interesting fight is on the cards in the Mangalore North constituency. Previously known as Surathkal constituency, it has regularly alternated between the Congress and the BJP for the last 30 years. And since the current incumbent is a BJP man, the Congress must be fancying its chances here this time. Among all constituencies Mangalore North is perhaps the most complicated. It is a huge work area for the district, hosting one of the largest petrochemical installations in the country. The Panambur Port and Bikampady Industrial Estate also fall in this constituency. But its social tensions lend it an uncertain electoral future. A key housing area for the Muslim community, Surathkal has seen increasing tussle for dominance in the recent years. Memories of unsavoury incidents still linger and this could affect electoral outcomes.

Victory is by no means certain for the two major national parties as regional parties like the JD(S) and sub-regional outfits like the SDPI can be effective vote gatherers. Refusing ticket to former MLA, Moideen Bawa, Congress has chosen Inayat Ali who is a grassroots level worker having risen from the NSUI and groomed by leaders such as Oscar Fernandes and D K Shivakumar. Bidding good bye to the Congress, Mohiuddin Bava decided join JD(S) and fight the election. Inayat Ali will have a formidable challenge in Bharat Shetty of the BJP, the incumbent MLA. Bharat is a popular youth leader of the BJP and won the seat with a large margin of 12,000 votes in 2018. Will history repeat itself with a change of party at the helm or will Bharat Shetty bring the laurels to the BJP?

Moodbidre:

Two interesting personalities hail from this constituency – Amarnath Shetty of the JD(S) and Abhaychandra Jain of the Congress. The fight was earlier between these two, with  Jain managing to show his prowess by retaining the seat for nearly twenty years continuously between 1999 and 2018. However the BJP managed to come up trumps for the first time in 2018 with the candidature of Umanatha Kotian. This time around Abhaychandra Jain is stepping aside to make way for his prodigy Mithun Rai, who had unsuccessfully challenged Nalin Kumar Kateel for the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha seat in 2019 to contest from the seat. The constituency itself has a large mix of Hindu communities and is much less polarized than the others in the region. Kotian has projected himself as a secular leader and will be striving to retain the 22,000 vote margin victory he gained in 2018.  Moodbidre is a crucial component of Dakshina Kannada’s economy as the National Highway runs through this taluk. It is also highly literate and has well developed small scale industries.  Mithun Rai will need the full backing of his party and Abhaychandra Jain to wrest the constituency back from Umanatha Kotian and the BJP. Another interesting candidate here is Dr Amarashree, the daughter of the JD(S) heavyweight Late Amarnath Shetty, who will be hoping for an emotional connect with voters on behalf of the JD(S).

Bantwal:
The Congress leader Ramanath Rai has dominated the politics of Bantwal since 1985. However, the BJP has managed to wrest the constituency from the Congress twice in the last three decades and  Rajesh U Naik of the BJP is the current incumbent. Both these candidates have been retained for the 2023 battle and Rai who will turn 71 this year knows that this may be his last battle. His loss to  Rajesh Naik in 2018 was with a margin of 15,000 votes and this must still rankle in his mind. Will his towering personality be enough to defeat the ideological strength of the BJP this time around?  Everyone who follows Dakshina Kannada politics will be watching the battle keenly to know the answer to that question. Electorally an extension of the politics of Puttur, the Bantwal region is a rich agricultural belt that sees its fortunes rise and fall with its agriculture. Like Puttur, no new industrial investments have been made here and the non-agricultural population depends either on small retail employment or moves to Mangalore, Bangalore, Mumbai or the Gulf in search of its fortunes. However, here too, polarization has ensured that people vote not for their economic well-being but for ideological preferences. A large minority population in this constituency, the highest among the eight assembly constituencies, makes the contest here interesting but uncertain.

Belthangady:
This assembly constituency is unique in that it has been an almost personal fight between the family of the Gowdas and the family of the Bangerasfor more than 30 years. Subsequently the fight also became an internecine warfare between two Bangera brothers Vasantha and Prabhakar who stood on either side of the ideological divide. However, the BJP opted to field an entirely new face in 2018 and their call proved correct when Harish Poonja romped home for the party. This time the Congress has decided to make a complete break from the past and has fieldeda new face in Rakshith Shivaram. The 39-year old  Rakshith is a young, rising leader of the party. He is also the nephew of Congress heavyweight B K Hariprasad. A lawyer by profession he is a State General Secretary of the Congress. The defending candidate Mr Poonjaof the BJP is a son of the soil and is also a young face in politics. He defeated his nearest rival by over 22,000 votes in 2018 and will be fancying his chances against the newcomer Rakshith in this elections. Predominately Hindu, the Belthangady taluk is a forgotten corner of the Dakshina Kannada district and is crying for development. Some of these pleas of the voters will surely reflect in the elections of 2023. Harish Poonja will be playing his son-of-Belthangady card while  Rakshith will be promising development for the constituency with his ties to the top leadership of the Congress.

Puttur:

The Puttur constituency is a stronghold of the BJP and the Congress managed to extricate it from their grasp in 2013 only by fielding a rebel BJP candidate  Shakuntala Shetty. However, the BJP wrested back the seat in 2018 with the candidature of  Sanjeeva Matandoor, a former District President of BJP in Dakshina Kannada and a man who rose through the co-operative movement. This time, however, the BJP found itself in a tight spot with highly objectionable videos and photos of Matandoor circulating on the internet just before the announcement of candidates. The party quickly replaced the candidate for the seat and Asha Thimmappa Gowda, a former President of the DK ZillaParishad will now enter battle to try and retain the seat for the BJP. But though Matandoor managed to win Puttur with a massive lead of over 19,000 votes in 2018, the task of  Gowda will not be easy as the Congress has fielded a heavy weight candidate against her. Ashok Kumar Rai, a prominent businessman and associated with the BJP for several years is expected to be the favourite for the seat. But the Congress is not without rebellion in its ranks. Puttur Women Block Congress Committee president Sharada Urs said that the committee members will resign en-mass if the Congress did not give the ticket to former MLA T Shakuntala Shetty. There was even talk of Ms. Shetty being urged to contest as an Independent candidate. Meanwhile, Arun Puttila of the BJP, another aspirant for the BJP Puttur ticket was weighing his chances of entering the fray as an independent.
Highly polarized and keenly political, this constituency has produced many leaders in the past for both the major national parties. It has grave problems of road connectivity, urban development, unemployment and uncertain agricultural production. No new industrial or service sector investment has come into the area in the recent past. Even tourism investment has been confined to Temple tourism. The youth of the constituency are regularly leaving for better prospects in Bangalore, Mumbai and the Gulf. But current electoral battles have rarely been fought on the basis of these economic difficulties.
This time too the battle is likely to be more ideological and high decibel noise can be expected from the nooks and corners of the constituency. An interesting entry into the fight is the SDPI candidate Shafi Bellare, who is an accused in the murder of BJP worker Pravin Nettur, and is currently in jail. Also in the fray is Divya Prabha of the JD(S) who was formerly with the Congress.

Sulliya:
This is an SC constituency and the BJP will be fancying its chances for an easy victory here, having retained the seat continuously from 1994 to 2023. Surprisingly, the BJP has dropped its famous candidate  Angara, who has won from here for the last twenty years.  Angara, who is also a minister was shocked at the turn of events and expressed his displeasure vocally to the press. He wondered whether he had been dropped as he was not capable of lobbying. Angara, however, retracted his statements subsequently and said he would campaign for the new BJP candidate. The BJP has chosen to go with Mrs Bhagirathi Murulya, who began life as a daily wage labourer. The Congress however has its own problems in this constituency. When it announced G Krishnappa as its official candidate there was immediate rebellion in the form of one of the hopefuls for the ticket, H M Nandakumar, who expressed his determination of standing as an independent in the constituency. With two new faces in the fray the contest in Sullia SC is expected to be of great interest.

Udupi
The historic Udupi assembly constituency has been represented in the past by stalwarts such as T APai, Manorama Madhwaraj and V S Acharya. But it has always seen fierce struggles between the BJP and the Congress. In 2018 the BJP‘s Raghupati Bhat wrested the seat from Pramod Madhwaraj of the Congress and was confident of going to battle in 2023 also. Much to his shock he has been denied a ticket and the BJP will be fielding a new face in YashpalSuvarna, an OBC leader from the coast. Ironically,  Suvarna is somewhat of a prodigy of  Raghupathi Bhat. But since  Bhat is a Brahmin and the BJP wanted to broadbase their candidate list to include more OBCs, Suvarna got the nod.  Suvarna is also the face of the right wing opposition to the wearing of hijab in colleges. With  Pramod Madhwaraj having switched to the BJP recently, the Congress had no choice but to field a new face. Prasadraj Kanchan, hailing from a political family and an automobile entrepreneur is the choice of the Congress for Udupi. Interestingly he is from the same Mogaveera community as Yashpal Suvarna. With two new faces battling it out the final outcome is anybody’s guess. The JD(S) will be fielding Dakshath R Shetty in Udupi and the SDPI is also reportedly planning a candidate for Udupi.

Karkala
One of the most keenly watched contests in 2023 will be the fight for Karkala. Currently held by the fast rising Sunil Kumar of the BJP, who has been elected in 2013 and in 2018 from the same constituency, the seat will witness the candidature of the firebrand Pramod Muthalik of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena (Sri Rama Sene), which is also a right wing affiliate of the BJP. Muthalik says he is forced to enter electoral politics to protect Hindutva and Karkala is the right place for this as this taluk has seen the maximum number of cow thefts. Though Sunil Kumar won convincingly in 2018 with a margin of over 42,000 votes, he risks losing some of the votes to Muthalik who is contesting in electoral politics for the first time. This will be good news for the Congress which has fielded Uday Shetty Muniyal, whose candidature was one of last to be decided by his party. Sunil Kumar who is now a Minister in the Bommai government, will of course not be sparing any effort to overcome the twin challenges he faces. Also in the fray will be Srikanth Kochchur of the JD(S).

Kaup
The Kaup Assembly constituency will also see a new face for the BJP in  Gurme Suresh Shetty who replaces three time winner Lalaji Mendon. The Kaup seat is a historic one for the BJP as it had wrested this for the first time from the Congress in 2018 defeating no less than the heavyweight Vinay Kumar Sorake.  Sorake is a secretary of the AICC, the highest decision making body of the Congress and is also a former This will be a prestigious fight for him as he battles to regain the seat from the BJP. What makes the fight more interesting is that Gurme Suresh Shetty is an ex-Congress man who had left the party only in 2013. The JD(S) has named  Sabina Samad as its candidate for Kaup.

Kundapura
Another interesting fight is shaping up in the Kundapura Assembly constituency where the BJP has surprisingly decided to drop  Halady Srinivas Shetty, who has been winning this seat since 1999. The new face for the BJP here will be  Kiran Kumar Kodgi. BJP circles say that  Halady had voluntarily withdrawn his candidature in favour of  Kodgi. With a new face in the BJP the Congress will fancy its chances this time around. Their candidate is  Dinesh Hegde, former President of the Molahalli Panchayat. The JD(S) is also in the fray with  Ramesh Kundapura.

Byndoor
Another surprise omission from the BJP candidates list of 2023 is the sitting MLA of Byndoor B M Sukumara Shetty. Sukumara Shetty, who claims to be a priest by profession, had lost to Gopal Poojary of the Congress in 2013, but managed to defeat him in 2018 and was hopeful of being retained this time too. However, the BJP has decided to bring in a fresh face and has given the ticket to Gururaj Gantihole who is low profile and comes from an RSS background. No reason has been forwarded by the party for the denial of the seat to  Sukumara Shetty.  Gopal Poojary, who is a past Chairman of KSRTC will once again do battle for the Congress against the new BJP entrant.  Poojary, who is a well-known face in the constituency and is fondly called Badavara Bandu is expected to prove a handful for the BJP in its attempt to retain the seat. The JD(S) has chosen a minority face  Mansoor Ibrahim to represent it.

Aam Aadmi Party:
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has emerged as a national party in the last 10 years, will contest the elections across the country this time and the list of candidates for five seats in Dakshina Kannada district has already been announced. Santhosh Kamath from Mangaluru South, Sandeep Shetty from North, Sumana Bellarkar from Sullia, Vijaya Vathalanath Shetty from Moodabidri and Dr. B.K. Vishukumar Gowda from Puttur are the candidates. If AAP succeeds, it will undermine support for Congress, but the evidence so far suggests that it will struggle to make headway in rural areas where elections are decided.

Social Democratic Party of India:
The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has also decided to field six candidates in the twin coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in the 2023 Assembly elections in Karnataka, to make its presence felt in the region. SDPI has fielded five candidates in Dakshina Kannada district including Shafi Bellare, an accused in the BJYM leader Praveen Nettaru murder case, from Puttur constituency. In Mangaluru, SDPI has nominated its national secretary Riyaz Farangipete, while another secretary Elyaz Mohammed Thumbe has been fielded from Bantwal. Two former ministers from Congress, U T Khader and B Ramanath Rai, are contesting from these seats. Other candidates in Dakshina Kannada are Akbar Ali (Belthangady) and Alfonso Franko from Moodbidri. Haneef Mooloor, contesting from Kaup, is the party’s sole candidate in Udupi district.

What then are the top issues of the electorate going into a major Assembly election?
A recent survey concluded that Unemployment, Inflation and Corruption are the top three woes of the electorate in Dakshina Kannada. Though this could mean a significant anti-incumbency for the BJP, since all three factors are usually attributed to the government in power, the BJP is confident that it can swing voters to its side as many of the Central Schemes including Universal banking, Universal Health and free food grains has percolated to the lowest sections of society.

Analysts and political experts stated that there is a tremendous amount of anti-incumbency in the state and the ‘40% sarkar’ (40% commission as bribe alleged by contractors) allegations have damaged the current BJP government’s credibility. Mohandas Pai, ex-CFO of Infosys and currently of Manipal Group, an ardent corporate supporter of the BJP, publicly called this government as known for ‘the most corrupt, ineffective and bad governance’ Karnataka ever had.

The Congress party is going hammer and tongs with its accusations of corruption against the highest levels of the government. The party is confident that people perceive this government to be humungously corrupt and are yearning for change. Will the Corruption issue affect the prospects of the ruling party candidates in Dakshina Kannada? The answer is yes and no. It must be noted that none of the ruling party candidates in the coastal constituencies are likely to carry corruption allegations against them. Therefore voters are unlikely to vote against them on this count. However, some amount of negative votes representing anger against corruption at the government level in Bengaluru can be expected.

While these may be the top of the mind problems of the electorate in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, several unattended local issues could also cause swings in voting on the day of the elections. Added to this is always the X-factors in any election today: religious polarization and the fan following for central leaders. The BJP has always considered the twin districts as bastions of Hinduism and has tried its best to get all the major Hindu castes into its fold. The Congress, while appealing on the basis of secularism, is also adept at exploiting caste fissures, much to the chagrin of the BJP. The BJP will also be relying on the charisma of Prime Minister Modi to its advantage. In the present times nobody matches the cult like following that Narendra Modi inspires. This sentiment of hero worship is such that the voter in Dakshina Kannada feels that he is directly voting for his/her hero when he votes for a particular party.

Thus a person who wants to see Modi as his Prime Minister will vote for the BJP regardless of who is the candidate of that party in Mangalore or Puttur. And regardless of whether it is a Lok Sabha election or a State Assembly Election. The Opposition parties are unable to match the persona of Modi to attract votes for the assembly elections. This is important as voters tend to even overlook discomforts like high inflation, poor infrastructure or even corruption to vote for their heroes.

Another factor that may well decide the fate of several candidates is money power. The use of money in elections was always high but has now reached monstrous proportions. It is estimated that the average candidate in a constituency in Dakshina Kannada would have to spend atleast Rs 50 crores to be in with a chance to be a winning candidate. This includes campaigning expenses as well as unaccounted freebies to voters. This kind of money requirement keeps all but the wealthy moneybags out of the race. Major parties fund their candidates almost fully while smaller parties with smaller kitties must look for candidates who can bring in such resources on their own. Unlike voters in other districts the educated voters of Dakshina Kannada are unlikely to be swayed by largesse from parties. But the thinking of the parties is that every little bit helps.

For the legislators of the coastal district and their enthusiastic supporters the 13th of May will determine their fate and position for another five years. Will they be sitting in government or would they have to content being opposition leaders? The voters’ decision will be final.