Gauri V Poojary and Rama Kulal of the BJP  have been elected as the Udupi taluk panchayat president and vice-president respectively, for the second term.

Udupi taluk panchayat has 41 members, of which 23 are from the BJP.  The Congress had fielded Dr Sunitha Shetty for the post of the president and Umesh Naik for the post of vice-president. As the BJP had majority in the taluk panchayat, the BJP candidates won.

The election process was conducted by Kundapur Assistant Commissioner Sadashiv Prabhu.
Speaking after getting elected as the president, Gauri thanked former MLA Haladi Srinivas Shetty for his support. “I will try to give good administration in the next 20 months. I will
give importance to transparency in the administration.”

The funds released to taluk panchayat is meagre in the recent days. “I will try my level best to get additional funds to the taluk panchayat to take up development work,” she said.

Wishing the newly elected president and vice-president, Kaup MLA Lalaji R Mendon called
upon the taluk panchayat members to work unitedly for the development of the taluk.
The ruling members should take all the members to confidence while taking up the work.
MLA Raghupathy Bhat, Zilla Panchayat in charge president Upendra Nayak, Taluk Panchayat EO D Manjunathaiah too wished the president.

Know your president

Gauri Poojary hails from Hosala in Barkur. She has served as the vice-president of Barkur gram panchayat. She has studied upto II PUC.

It was Barkur Shantharam Shetty who pursuaded Gauri to enter into politics.
Rama Kulal has served as the Perdur Gram Panchayat member twice in the past. He was the Perdur Kulala Sangha and Jilla Kumbarara Sangha President.