Vinaykumar Sorake, the Congress candidate from Kaup, said on Thursday that he would win the election despite the rebellion by the former Minister Vasanth Salian, who has entered the fray as Janata Dal (Secular) candidate.
Addressing presspersons here, Mr. Sorake said the Congress party had secured a lead of 6,000 votes in the Kaup Assembly segment during the by-poll to the Udupi-Chikmagalur parliamentary constituency held in March, 2012. Hence, the party would perform well in the May 5 Assembly elections also.
Stating that he had not lobbied for the Congress ticket for Kaup Assembly constituency, Mr. Sorake said the party high command had given him the ticket because there were some internal problems in the party in Kaup.
The campaign of the party would start in a couple of days. He would visit the workers in all the gram panchayats in the constituency. “Nearly 99 per cent of Congress workers are with me. I will try to win over the remaining one per cent also,” he said.
On Mr. Salian’s charge that Mr. Sorake was responsible for his defeat in the 2004 and 2008 Assembly elections, Mr. Sorake said that he had not instigated anyone to stand as independent candidate in those elections. “Mr. Salian is now in the company of those [in the Janata Dal(Secular)] who had put up candidates against him in the previous Assembly elections,” he said.
To a question, Mr. Sorake said that he had participated in various protest meetings and demonstrations held against the pollution caused by the coal-based thermal power project of the Udupi Power Corporation Ltd (UPCL) at Yellur in Kaup. It was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government which had allowed the setting up of the UPCL.
Mr. Sorake said he was not against industrialisation in Kaup. “It will create more employment,” he said. Mr. Sorake said he wanted a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to be established in the constituency but he wanted only eco-friendly industries and not those which led to environmental pollution .
