At last the counting day for the Lok Sabha elections is here and over 12 lakh people, who voted through the electronic voting machines in Dakshina Kannada, have only one question in mind: will the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) remain supreme or lose it to Janardhana Poojary of the Congress?
Mr. Poojary, a veteran of nine Parliamentary contests since 1977, is looking for his fifth victory in the constituency while BJP’s Nalin Kumar Kateel, who won the constituency on his debut in 2009, is keen to retain the seat and silence his critics.
The Congress had held the constituency till 1991 but in the last six elections the BJP has come on top.
In 1991, the BJP’s V. Dhananjaya Kumar, who contested as a Janata Dal (S) candidate from Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency in this elections, wrested the seat from the Congress and never let it slip from his grip.
Mr. Kumar went on to win the seat three more times thereafter. In 1999, former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda became Dakshina Kannada MP and Mr. Kateel in the 2004 elections.
Both the Congress and the BJP appear optimistic of their chances of victory on Friday. But one has to see whether the Dakshina Kannada voter, who helped the Congress wrest three assembly seats in the 2013 elections, would ditch the BJP or keep the lotus party as their Parliamentary choice.
Of the eight assembly constituencies the BJP could retain only one seat in the 2013 elections in the district.
The Congress had over 88,000 more votes than the BJP in the last Assembly elections in all the eight Assembly constituencies put together, but in the 2009 parliamentary elections the BJP had secured over 40,000 votes more than the Congress.
Thus the last two elections offer a contradictory outlook. However, to what extent the supposed Modi wave had worked in the district will be known by Friday afternoon.
75, 000 to be counted in first 14 rounds
About 75,000 votes will be counted in each of the first 14 rounds on Friday. There will be total of 18 rounds.
According to an official release, the subsequent rounds will witness fewer votes being counted. The 15 round will have 65,883 votes to count, the 16 45,339 while the penultimate round will have 21,553 votes to vount. The last round will only 923 votes to count. In all there 12.07 lakh votes to be counted other than the postal ballots.
After the postal ballots are counted, officials will take up 18 EVMs from each of the eight assembly constituencies at one go. Thus they will take up maximum of 112 EVMs in each rounds.
