Polling peaceful to new TPs, TMC in districts

The election for recently upgraded Kotekar and Vittal Town Panchayats in Dakshina Kannada and Kaup Town Municipal Council in Udupi was peaceful on Sunday.

Kotekar Town Panchayat has registered 67.27 per cent polling – out of 13,160 voters, a total of 8,853 have exercised their franchise, including 4,662 female voters. Vittal Town Panchayat has registered 73.71 polling. The total number of voters is 13,516 and 9,963 voters have exercised their franchise.

This is the first election since Kotekar Gram Panchayat was upgraded to Town Panchayat. The Town Panchayat has 17 seats, of which one candidate from Congress was elected unopposed. The election was held for 16 seats with 43 candidates in fray.

Vittal Town Panchayat has 18 seats. Four polling booths in Vittal had been declared sensitive and 14 booths were hyper-sensitive.

Udupi

The first-ever election held for the newly created Kaup Town Municipal Council recorded 74.23 per cent polling. As many as 58 candidates were in the fray for the 23 wards. The total number of voters in the constituency is 16,491, with 8,729 women and 7,762 men.

The polling, which was held from 7 am to 5 pm, went on peacefully, without any sort of untoward incidents. Of the total 23 wards, 11 wards were sensitive.

Electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used for polling, however, there was no option of None Of The Above (NOTA). Among the 23 wards, Gujji recorded highest polling of 81.83 per cent, while Mangalapete recorded the least, with 65.31 percentage of polling. The other wards where polling was held include Kaipunjalu (79.75 percent), Kotalakatte (72.84), Karavali (77.84), Polipugudde (79.27), Danda Theertha (77.88), Kalya (74.25), Bharath Nagar (70.25), Beedubadi (66.96), Kaup Pete (70.60), Light House (80.58), Kppalagnadi (68.54), Tottam (76.12), Duggan Thota (66.19), Janradhana Temple (72.15), Polipu (81.03), Badagara Gutthu (78.54), Kombugudde (73.74), General Shale (73.83), Garadi (73.13), Kudimar (74.70) and Ahmadi Mohala (73.96 percent).

The newly created Kaup Town Municipal Council is the result of amalgamation of Kaup and the surrounding villages. The counting of votes will be held at Court Hall in Udupi Taluk Office on April 27.

Straight fight

The straight fight between the BJP and the Congress had made Kaup a hot bed of tussle between arch rivals. The Congress and the BJP had fielded candidates in all the 23 wards, while the JD(S) and the Social Democratic Party of India had fielded five and four candidates respectively.

There are three independent candidates in the fray. District In-charge Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake is the MLA of the Kaup Assembly constituency and winning the Kaup TMC would be a question of prestige for Sorake. The present scenario, however, is not so favourable for the Congress, as the BJP swept away both zilla panchayat and taluk panchayat elections that were held recently.