After the hectic campaigning and the Lok Sabha elections in the district on Thursday, many political leaders from Dakshina Kannada headed to other constituencies in the State and to neighbouring Kerala on Friday.
Nalin Kumar Kateel, BJP candidate and MP, along with a team of BJP MLAs from the district hit the campaign trail in Kasaragod, Kumble, and Manjeshwar areas in Kerala on Friday.
Harish Poonja, MLA, Belthangady went to campaign in Ranebennur.
Congress candidate Mithun M. Rai took a rest in the city. “He is very tired and has not slept properly for the past 20 days,” K. Harish Kumar, MLC and president of Dakshina Kannada District Congress Committee said.
Mr. Kumar and a team of 100 Congress workers went to Byndoor in Udupi district, which is under Shivamogga Lok Sabha constituency, to campaign for S. Madhu Bangarappa, the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate. U.T. Khader, Minister in-charge of Dakshina Kannada, went to Kalaburagi to campaign.
Mr. Kumar said that Ivan D’Souza, MLC, had left for Bidar and Ballari after casting his vote on Thursday. Former Minister B. Ramanath Rai went to Wayanad and T. Shakuntala Shetty, former MLA, went to Kasaragod in Kerala.
Meanwhile, Mr. Matandoor told The Hindu that looking at the huge voter turnout on Thursday, the BJP is hopeful that its target of winning Dakshina Kannada for the eighth consecutive term will be achieved with a margin of about 2 lakh votes. He said that according to the party’s observation minority-concentrated areas in the constituency did not witness turnout at the expected level. Instead voters turned up in large numbers in other areas. Hence the BJP has high hopes, Mr. Matandoor said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kumar told The Hindu that the high percentage of voting in all the Assembly segments indicated that it was not “normal” and it gave some room for suspicion.
Udupi leaders
Shobha Karandlaje, BJP candidate for Udupi-Chikkamagaluru, who is also the general secretary of the State unit, is campaigning for the party in the Chikkodi parliamentary constituency.
“Ms. Karandlaje will mostly likely be there till April 21, when the public campaigning comes to an end,” said T.V. Hegde, former president of district unit of BJP, here.
Pramod Madhwaraj, Janata Dal (Secular) candidate for Udupi-Chikkamagaluru parliamentary constituency, is campaigning for the JD(S) candidate, Madhu Bangarappa, in Byndoor Assembly constituency in Udupi district coming under the Shivamogga parliamentary constituency. K. Raghupati Bhat, Udupi MLA and senior BJP leader, is campaigning for the BJP candidate, Suresh Angadi, in Belagavi.
