Acid test for 34 candidates in Udupi

The fate of 34 candidates contesting in five Assembly constituencies would be sealed on Saturday in 1,103 polling booths across the Udupi district.

In the five Assembly constituencies, there are five candidates in Kundapur, seven in Karkala, nine in Byndoor, eight in Udupi and five in Kaup. Almost all these constituencies would have a direct fight between the two national parties Congress and BJP. Although the JD(S) has fielded its candidate in Byndoor, there is not much hype about the party’s candidate. In Udupi Assembly constituency, Pramod Madhwaraj of Congress is pitted against BJP candidate Raghupathy Bhat. While in Kundapur, BJP’s Haladi Srinivas Shetty would be taking on the new face from Congress party’s Rakesh Malli. In Karkala, it is Sunil Kumar of BJP vs Congress candidate Gopal Bhandari. In Kaup Assembly constituency, Vinay Kumar Sorake from Congress will take on Lalaji R Mendon from BJP. In Byndoor Assembly constituency, Gopal Poojary of Congress will have a direct fight with his arch rival from BJP, Sukumar Shetty. Every constituency would surely pose an interesting challenge to both the parties who sweated it out in the course of campaigning. The blame game was an integral part of the campaigning during the rallies to lure voters. It was also claimed that the fight would be between dharma and adharma. However, May 12 would decide the destiny of each contesting candidate as the ball is now in the court of the voters.

The district administration had taken up intensive awareness programmes under SVEEP to ensure free and fair elections with a huge polling turn out. There are also 3-4 striking forces to counter emergency situations. Prohibitory orders for liquor is in place from 6 pm on Thursday to 8 pm on Saturday. The dry days for counting day would be in place from 6 pm on May 14 to midnight on May 15 respectively. As many as 6,342 polling staffs who are on election duty left to their respective polling stations assigned in the afternoon after the formalities were completed at the three mustering and de-mustering centres in the district which includes St Cecily College, Udupi; Bhandarkar’s College, Kundapur; and Manjunath Pai College, Karkala respectively.

Counting would be done at T A Pai English Medium School in Udupi on May 15.