After a quite a long wait, the third list announced by the BJP has cleared the candidates for the prestigious Udupi Assembly constituency and Kaup Assembly constituency in the district.
But the wait had no surprises as the BJP has given its ticket for Udupi constituency to K. Raghupati Bhat and for the Kaup Constituency to Lalji Mendon. Both of them were front-runners for the ticket in the respective constituencies.
Both are two-term MLAs, who won in both 2004 Assembly polls and the successive 2008 Assembly polls. However, Mr. Mendon contested the 2013 Assembly polls and was defeated by the Congress candidate Vinay Kumar Sorake by a margin of 1,855 votes. He will face Mr. Sorake in Kaup again.
In the case of Mr. Bhat, it was a different story. Under Mr. Bhat as MLA, the image of BJP took a beating owing to the hosting of controversial Spring Zouk Music Island Festival at St. Mary’s Island near Udupi in February, 2012, which was dubbed a ‘rave party’ and the release of a sleaze CD released just before the 2013 Assembly polls.
Owing to this controversy, Mr. Bhat dropped out of the race, and the BJP chose the former vice-president of Udupi municipality B. Sudhakar Shetty as its candidate. But Mr. Shetty lost to Congress candidate Pramod Madhwaraj by a big margin of 39,524 votes.
The Congress has given its ticket to Mr. Madhwaraj. Mr. Bhat and Mr. Madhwaraj were classmates in school. They will face one another the second time. Mr. Bhat had defeated Mr. Madhwaraj in the 2008 Assembly elections by a margin of 2,479 votes. It remains to be seen who emerges lucky this time.
In the meantime, they will have to deal with Lakshmivara Tirtha Swami of Shiroor Mutt, who will file his nomination papers as an Independent candidate here on Saturday.
He will be the first seer among the seers of the ‘Ashta Mutts’ or eight mutts of Udupi, which have been propagating the Dwaita philosophy for the last 800 years, to enter electoral politics. The seer’s entry has made the contest in Udupi an interesting one.
