Mangalore, Apr 6: The Bharatiya Janata Party in Dakshina Kannada appears to have an edge over its rival parties in the State Assembly elections scheduled to be held in May. Although delimitation exercise brought down the number of constituencies it had won in the last elections from seven to six, the party had secured about 42,000 more votes than the Congress in 2004 Assembly elections.

The dissolution of Vittla constituency brings down the number of constituencies in the district to eight from nine. The two constituencies bagged by the Congress have been retained, albeit with a change in the nomenclature of one of them.

The BJP secured 4.42 lakh votes against nearly 4 lakh votes polled by the Congress in 2004. The BJP’s share accounts for 45 per cent of the 13.12 lakh votes polled against 41 per cent of the Congress. The Janata Dal (Secular) had secured about 10 per cent votes. The BJP wants to wrest the Mangalore constituency from the Congress where U.T. Khader won the byelection last year. The death of his father U.T. Fareed had necessitated the by-election. The BJP’s district unit president K. Monappa Bhandari said this constituency was the weakest link for the party and that it was working hard to win there. “We are finding the right strategies to do that,” he said. He is relying on the fact that the constituency has become larger owing to delimitation. The Mangalore constituency will henceforth be called Mangalore South. The Congress appears to be worried about its chances in the Mangalore South, which according to the party’s functionaries, has got “more urban outlook” with the addition of nine city wards into it. “The BJP is strong in urban areas,” a party functionary said. The dissolution of Vittla constituency in the delimitation is viewed as a huge loss to both the parties.

The BJP has lost a constituency from where its candidates were elected in four of the last six elections. In 2004 elections, its candidate Padmanabh Kottary had won with a slender margin of 400 votes.

Hindu