JOIN US3 withdraw, 14 remain in fray in Dakshina Kannada
With two more candidates withdrawing their nominations from the election fray on Saturday, which was the last day for withdrawing nominations, the Dakshina Kannada parliamentary constituency is left with 14 candidates who will fight it on April 17.
Briefing medispersons on Saturday, Deputy Commissioner A B Ibrahim said that a total of three independent candidates namely, Iruvail Chandrahas Shetty, Mohammad Akram and Abdul Hameed have withdrawn from the election fray. The candidates who are left in the fray are allotted with election symbols on Saturday.
Following are the candidates and their symbols:
B Janardhan Poojary (Congress - Palm), Nalin Kumar Kateel (BJP - Lotus), Moose Kunhi alias Abdul Karim (BSP - Elephant), K Yadav Shetty (CPI(M) - Hammer, sickle and star), M R Vasudeva (AAP - Broomstick), Supreeth Kumar Poojary (HJP - Cut and saucer), Hnaif Khan Kodaje (SDPI - Autorickshaw), Anand Gatty (Independent - Gas cylinder), K Kushala Bellare (Ind - Colleyflower), Deepak Rajesh Coelho (Ind - Diesel pump), Maxim Pinto (Ind - Coconut), Sudattha Jain Shirthadi (Ind - Sandal), Subramanya Gowda K (Ind - Frock) and K N Somashekhar (Ind - Basket with fruits).
Total voters
The district administration has verified and finalised the electoral roll and the total number of voters in the district is 15,62,321. An additional 32,000 voters were included in the list after a voters registration drive was carried out in all the assembly segments from March 9 to 16. According to the new figure, the highest number of voters in the district are in Mangalore South assembly segment - 2,16,865 and the lowest number of voters are in Mangalore assembly segment - 1,75,057. The number of voters in Belthangady is - 2,00,638, Moodbidri - 1,81,076, Mangalore North - 2,15,372, Bantwal - 2,01,234, Puttur - 1,86,166 and Sullia - 1,85,913.
Giving credit to the Block Election Officers for their role in enrolling voters in the voters list during the voters enrolment drive, the deputy commissioner said that 1,800 BLOs have worked hard to collect details and create awareness among people to add or delete their names from the voters list.
Vehicles on election duty
Briefing about the vehicle arrangements made for election officers on duty, RTO Afzal Ahmed Khan said that the number of government vehicles available in the district is 100, while nearly 1,000 vehicles will be required for election.
The administration will hire 850 private vehicles including jeeps, Tata Sumo and buses for the purpose. However, he accepted that there was resistance from private vehicle owners to rent their vehicle for election duty. Assuring of paying rents on time unlike in the past, he requested vehicle owners to co-operate with the administration to hire the vehicles.
General Observer Bhaskar Sawant, Police Observer M Ravi and Assistant Returning Officer Sadashiva Prabhu were present.