BJP sweep in Udupi shocks Congress

The BJP has swept all the five Legislative Assembly constituencies in Udupi district, giving a huge shock to the Congress.

In Udupi, Congress candidate Pramod Madhwaraj was defeated by BJP candidate Raghupathi Bhat with a margin of 12,044 votes. Pramod secured 72,902 votes while Bhat gained 84,946 votes.

In Kaup, Congress candidate Vinay Kumar Sorake received an unexpected blow with his opponent winning with a huge margin ever recorded in the history of the constituency. BJP’s Lalaji R Mendon secured 75,893 votes as against 63,976 votes gained by Sorake. The margin was 11,917 votes.

In Karkala, BJP’s Sunil Kumar secured a huge margin of victory against Congress rival Gopal Bhandari. Kumar had an easy victory with a margin of 42,566 votes. The votes received by Kumar are 91,245 while Bhandari secured 48,679 votes.

In Kundapur, the BJP candidate who is the fifth time MLA at present clinched a huge margin of victory over his Congress rival Rakesh Malli. The votes received by Haladi Srinivas Shetty were 1,03,434. Malli managed to secure only 47,029 votes. The winning margin is 56,405 votes.

In Byndoor, Congress candidate Gopal Poojary was defeated with a margin of 24,393 votes. Sukumar Shetty of BJP received 96,029 votes and Poojary gained 71,636 votes respectively.

The Congress candidates, except in Udupi and Byndoor, failed to give an interesting fight as the count of votes increased rounds after rounds to their respective BJP opponents.

As expected

In Kundapur, Karkala and Kaup, right from the first round, it was evident that the BJP candidates were ahead in the race against their Congress opponents.

Even in Udupi, Raghupathi Bhat was in leading and increased the margin in the 6th, 7th and 8th rounds (Pramod Madhwaraj received 28,483 votes and Bhat 28,723 in the 6th round; Pramod Madhwaraj 37,932 and Bhat 39,179 in 8th round).

A neck-to-neck fight between the two candidates was expected to completely twist the results. However, from the 9th round, Bhat did not look back but went on increasing his number of votes and by the 10th round, he was assured of clinching the victory. Moreover, the celebrations outside indicated that the BJP candidate would have an easy victory.

In Karkala too, it was almost certain that Sunil Kumar will have an easy victory. By the end of the 8th round, Gopal Bhandari polled 18,990 votes and Kumar polled 36,232 votes. At the end of the 9th round, Bhandari polled 29,685 votes and Kumar’s tally was 53,956. In the 13th round, the votes secured by Bhandari were 43,106 while that of Kumar was 78,711. At the end of the 15th round, Bhandari secured 48,433 votes while Kumar managed to secure 90,706 votes.

Haladi Srinivas Shetty of Kundapur had a good time since the beginning and the BJP candidate signalled all possibilities of the victory right from the round one. However, the margin was the only point of curiosity that was left for the onlookers. At the end of the 8th round, Rakesh Malli had polled 23,006 votes, while Shetty had received 51,729 votes. At the end of the 12th round, Malli had polled 35,344 votes while Shetty had secured 77,834 votes. By the end of the 15th round, Malli received 44,771 votes and Shetty had received 98,444 votes.

In Byndoor, the outcome was a revelation and heightened the curiosity, with the BJP candidate emerging as the winner. By the end of the 8th round, Gopal Poojary had received 34,216 votes and Sukumar Shetty had secured 41,741 votes. In the 11th round, Gopal Poojary had secured 44,719 votes and Sukumar Shetty had received 56,207 votes and in the 16th round, Gopal Poojary got 65,205 votes and Sukumar Shetty received 86,053 votes.

Even in Kaup, Lalaji R Mendon was in for a surprise as most of the political analysts had predicted an easy victory for Congress candidate Vinay Kumar Sorake. In the 6th round, Sorake received 24,774 votes and Lalaji Mendon got 33,840 votes. In the 9th round, Sorake received 39,038 votes and Lalaji Mendon got 48,014 votes. In the 11th round, Sorake secured 47,898 votes and Lalaji Mendon bagged 57,028 votes, which sealed a decent margin of victory to the BJP candidate.