The Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Nalin Kumar Kateel’s victory by a margin of 1,43,709 votes against B. Janaradhana Poojary of the Congress is, no doubt, the highest since Independence in Dakshina Kannada.
In the first-ever elections in 1951, the district was part of the South Kanara South constituency. It came to be known as Mangalore in the 1957 Lok Sabha polls and as Dakshina Kannada after delimitation of constituencies in 2008.
A qualitative assessment of the victory margin, however, reveals that the most convincing triumph in the constituency was recorded by K.K. Shetty (Congress) over C.M. Poonacha (Congress-O) in 1971.
Though the victory margin was 1.21 lakh — about 22,000 votes less than what Mr. Kateel secured — it appears to be qualitatively better.
Of the 3.18 lakh votes polled, Mr. Shetty had bagged 2.06 lakh votes compared to his rival’s tally of 84,286. Thus, he polled nearly two-and-half times (2.44 times to be precise) more votes than Mr. Poonacha.
The next most convincing victory was recorded by Mr. Poojary in 1980. The Congress veteran (2.49 lakh votes) had got a little over twice the votes of his near rival Karambally Sanjeeva Shetty (1.20 lakh votes) of the Janata Party.
Mr. Poojary has lost with highest margin as well as least margin in the constituency. The latest election is considered to be his biggest defeat.
Mr. Kateel has to be credited for increasing his victory margin against Mr. Poojary by over 3.5 times, compared to the 2009 elections.
