BJP dominates Dakshina Kannada, Udupi despite strong Congress wave across state
MANGALURU: While the Congress wave swept the entire state, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts largely remained unaffected. Hindutva and the experiment of fielding new candidates are said to be the reason for this here.
In Udupi, the BJP managed to maintain its dominance by winning all five seats. Four of the five were fresh faces who secured their victories with significant margins. In Dakshina Kannada, where BJP had six out of seven seats, they lost Puttur to Congress.
In Kundapur BJP’s Kiran Kumar Kodgi defeated Congress candidate Dinesh Hegde Molahalli by 41,556 votes, Udupi candidate Yashpal Suvarna defeated Prasadraj Kanchan by a margin of 32,776, Kundapur candidate Gururaj Shetty Gantihole defeated Congress candidate Gopal Poojary by a margin of 16,153 and Kapu BJP candidate Gurme Suresh Shetty defeated former Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake by 13,004 votes. The narrow margin was in Karkala where Minister Sunil Kumar defeated Udaya Shetty Muniyal by 4,602 votes.
In Dakshina Kannada district too BJP retained its seat except Puttur where Congress candidate Ashok Rai won by a margin of 4,149 votes. Here BJP fielded Asha Timmappa Gowda whom the workers had opposed. Arun Putthila, who was an active worker of Sangh Parivar contested as an independent candidate and stood second. The BJP candidate was pushed to third place here.
The BJP candidates in DK too won by a huge margin. In Moodabidri Umanatha Kotian won by a margin of 22,468 against Mithun Rai, Bharath Shetty (Mangalore City North) won by a margin of 32,922 against Inayat Ali, D Vedavyas Kamath (Mangalore City South) won by a margin of 23,962 against JR Lobo and Harish Poonja (Belthangady) won with a margin of 18,216. In Bantwal the margin of Rajesh Naik was 8,282.
Congress retained its seat in Mangalore where former minister UT Khader won by a margin of 22,890 against BJP’s Sathish Kumpala.
BJP leaders attribute their victory in the Coastal region to the Hindutva factor and also to fielding new faces.
“One of the major reasons is that we fielded new faces in the Udupi district and all of them won by a huge margin. As new candidates were fielded people decided to vote for them because there were no allegations against them. This experiment worked in Udupi. In Dakshina Kannada, all the candidates had served only for one term and nobody faced any major allegations. So people supported them,” Mangaluru Vibhag Prabhari Uday Kumar Shetty told Deccan Chronicle.
Another factor that helped BJP was the Bajrang Dal issue.
"Hindutva plays an important role here. The moment Congress spoke about banning Bajrang Dal, it worked against them in the Coastal districts of Udupi and DK, and Hindus voted for BJP here," he added.
