Chikmagalur gears up for panchayat elections

As many as eight candidates filed their nomination for panchayat polls, on Tuesday.

Muguluvalli Niranjan filed his nomination as BJP candidate for Ambale ZP constituency, Meenakshi Dharmesh filed her nomination as BJP candidate for Muguluvalli TP constituency, Dharmesh filed his nomination as BJP candidate for Ambale TP constituency to Election Officers K Dayananda and Veena.

In Koppa taluk, Suma Nagesh filed her nomination to contest from Jayapura ZP constituency along with Devendra who is contesting from Honnagundi TP constituency.

Kadur taluk had Lakshmidevi filing her nomination from Singatagere ZP constituency.

Violation

All the three BJP members who filed nomination in Chikmagalur have landed themselves into trouble as Election Officers Gertrude Veigas and K Dayananda have booked case against them for violation of election code of conduct.

Muguluvalli Niranjan had put up party flag in his Maruti car. Further Niranjan, Krishna Kumar Ambale and Meenakshi had come to the venue to file nomination with over 150 supporters, music band and banners, which was a clear violation of the code.

In Mudigere

As the taluk is gearing up for the Zilla Panchayat and Taluk Panchayat elections, political parties have started chalking out plans to bag majority. Workers are busy preparing campaign materials in party offices.

While some parties plan to field honest and loyal candidates, others are trying to attract youth by fielding young candidates. The election is crucial for all parties in wake of the prevailing political instability in the state. Leaders of many parties anticipate a mid-term poll in the State and they are gearing up to face the election by attracting youth.

Aspirants in the Congress and the BJP have already started door-to-door campaign in the taluk.

The JD(S) and the Congress had ruled the taluk during the last term. While the Congress had bagged five seats, JD(S) had won seven seats. The BJP had to satisfy themselves with only one seat.

However, the BJP could bag one more seat in the bypoll. In the Zilla Panchayat elections, the JD(S) had bagged three seats, while the Congress and the CPI won one seat each in the taluk.

Mudigere Legislative Assembly Constituency is reserved for Scheduled Caste. As a result, candidates from Vokkaliga community bag more seats in the elections to local bodies in the taluk.

For the BJP, MLA M P Kumaraswamy and District President M K Pranesh are the assets.

While Opposition Leader in the Legislative Council Motamma will be in the forefront for the election campaign for the Congress, JD(S) has the backing of several local organisations. The CPI is led by Zilla Panchayat Member Sathi Sundaresh.

Members of the Vokkaliga community have representation in most of the block committees of all political parties. Congress President M P Manu, BJP President Jayanth Kumar, JD(S) President D R Umapathi and CPI Secretary Lakshman Kumar belong to the Vokkaliga community. None of the aspirants filed nomination papers in the taluk on Tuesday.


In Sringeri

The two Zilla Panchayat constituencies and 11 Taluk Panchayat constituencies in the taluk will have 23,677 elegible voters for ZP and TP elections. Mense has 11,768 voters with 5893 men and 5875 women. Sringeri rural constituency has 11,909 voters of which 6,004 are men and 5,905 are women.

In the taluk there are 47 polling booths of which 17 are sensitive and 20 are identified as hyper-sensitive.

There are six polling officials appointed for each polling booth and 282 are deputed as polling officials. December 20 is the last day to file nominations and December 23 is the last day to withdraw the nominations. Electronic polling machinery will be used in all of the 47 polling booths, said Taluk Election Tahshildar Jagadish.

R Giddegowda will be the assistant election officer for Addagaddhe, Begur, Dharekoppa and Horuru Taluk Panchayat constituencies. For Kere, Kuthugoddu, Makral, Menase constituencies C R Srinivas will be the official and for Nemmuru Shringeri villages, Yadadhali constituencies S Manjappa will be the assistant election officer, he said.

Karnataka Silk Board Director I K Rangaswamy has been appointed as the election observer, Town Development Board Project Officer Mahendra Kumar has been appointed as code of conduct officer and Subbarao has been appointed as Account officer.