The mood was upbeat among the Bharatiya Janata Party workers on Friday as the party retained the Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha seat for the seventh consecutive time since 1991.
Party workers had another reason to rejoice this year as BJP’s Nalin Kumar Kateel defeated B. Janardhana Poojary of the Congress by a huge margin of 1,43,709 votes. While Mr. Kateel, who was elected to the Lok Sabha for the second consecutive term, polled 6,42,739 votes, Mr. Poojary, who contested unsuccessfully for the fifth time, secured 4,99,030 votes.
In the 2009 elections, Mr. Kateel, a political novice, had defeated Mr. Poojary by a margin of 40,420 votes.
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While the BJP had prepared well in advance to face the elections this time, the Congress was grappling to announce its candidate in the constituency. Mr. Poojary’s candidature was announced on March 8 after conducting an internal election.
According to K. Prathap Simha Nayak, president of the Dakshina Kannada unit of the BJP, the party completed three rounds of campaigning in the constituency before the election was announced.
Mr. Kateel told presspersons after the announcement of results that he won by a huge margin because of Modi wave and the works carried out by him in the past five years. He reiterated that his immediate priority was to get a railway division for the region with Mangalore as its headquarters. Mr. Kateel said his other priorities would be to create a special agriculture zone, set up an information technology park and environment-friendly industries, widen national highways, and develop New Mangalore Port.
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