MLC polls: Pratapchandra Shetty, Srinivas Poojari elected unanimously

Mangalore Today

MANGALORE : Sitting MLCs K Pratapchandra Shetty of the Congress and Kota Srinivas Poojari of the BJP have been unanimously re-elected to the Legislative Council after the remaining candidates in the fray K Krishnaraj Hegde and MA Ismail withdrew their nomination on Friday.

 

Kota Srinivas Poojari K Pratapchandra Shetty

The unanimous election of these two sitting MLCs, has another aspect to rejoice about. Their re-election has saved the state exchequer of nearly Rs 10 lakhs which would have been otherwise spent for the election process.

An MLC election here would mean setting up of 367 polling booths, each booth having three officers and two police personnel on duty. The election was scheduled to be held on December 18. Now, both time and cost has been saved with their unanimous election. The membership of the two will be in vogue till January 5, 2010.

Earlier a total of seven persons including five independents were in the fray. Of them former legislator Kushala withdrew his nomination on December 2, while Ranjith Kumar Shetty and Prabhaker Prabhu followed suit on December 3.

In the MLC polls held in 2003, Pratapchandra Shetty and Blasius M D’Souza, both from the Congress were elected. In the elections held in 2008 to the post that fell vacant following the demise of Blasius, Kota Srinivas Poojari of the BJP was elected by defeating Nityananda Mundodi of the Congress.