With just a day left for polling, candidates have been mobilising their “resources” to woo voters in Doddaballapur, Vijayapura and Devanahalli town municipalities. The campaigning came to an end at 7 am on Wednesday, for the September 28 election.

Any visitor to these towns will be awe-struck by the sheer number of display of flags, banners, posters, buntings and other publicity material.

As real estate boom has brought unimaginable prosperity to the towns and villages surrounding them, candidates of all major parties are splurging money to woo the voters. While in some wards, the real-estate dons thesemlves have entered the electoral arena, in other wards they are supporting the candidates of different parties.

As those contesting the local body elections need not maintain accounts of their expenditure, the candidates or their party leaders or the land mafia supporting them are spending unimaginable amounts of money to win over the voters.

It is said that in places like Devanahalli, where the international airport is coming up, majority of candidates belonging to three major parties are said to be spending over Rs 10,000 on each vote.

High on liquor

These candidates are said to be distributing either 10 gm gold coin or a colour TV to each voter. Liquor, dinner etc have become daily affair since the filing of nominations.

With money occupying the centre stage, development issues have been relegated to the back stage.  

While the contest is triangular in Doddaballapur and Devanahalli town municipalities, it is a straight fight between Congress and JD (S) in Vijaypura town municipality. The BJP’s presence is marginal in Vijaypura municipality.

In Doddaballapur municipality the Congress, which was in power during the previous term, has entered into an alliance with the local outfit-Kannada Paksha. Of the 31 seats, the Congress has allotted four seats to the Kannada Paksha headed by Dr Venkat Reddy.

Congress Lok Sabha Member R L Jalappa’s elder son Venkataramanappa, who is sitting MLA and another son Rajendra, who was the municipal president previously, are spearheading the campaign for their party.

Of the 70,000 voters in the town, majority belong to the Devanga community, followed by Lingayat and Muslim voters.

In Vijayapura, the presence of eight rebel candidates are likely to mar the chances of Congress coming to power.

The BSP has fielded four candidates. Of the total 36,000 voters, majority are Muslims, followed by Vokkaligas, Tigalas, Lingayats, and Vysyas.