Mangalore march 14, 2013
By C D Souza
The overwhelming victory for Congress in the coastal belt of undivided Dakshina Kannada should not surprise those who had kept a watch on the political developments in these twin districts in the last five years. The BJP came to power in Mangalore City Corporation 2007 utterly defeating the Congress in a one-to-one contest. During its five year rule there were not major issues that could have brought about BJP’s humiliating defeat in this election. Though it was well known that BJP’s hold in the coastal belt was waning, none expected it to be maul by the Congress so badly. Even though the BJP was aware, it pretended not to know until the election results gave them a reality check on the situation, to wake them up from their slumber.
Rebels blamed
Reacting to the results the party has found a convenient escape route saying party rebels spoilt their party, which isalso true to some extent. BJP leaders should have known it earlier and should have taken corrective measures, but this was not given any priority. Not that it would have altered the course of the results, but it would have made a difference to the number of winning seats. What has come as a shocker to the BJP is that it has lost in the wards of old municipality area namely Court ward, Kodialbail, Bolur, Urwa, considered to be a traditional BJP-RSS stronghold. A BJP corporator who retained his seat despite strong Congress wave says “It is quite disheartening to know that we have lost in these wards, which have been our strongholds. It is a reminder of what the future holds for our party as the assembly elections are just a few weeks away”.
Another Corporator says that the party erred by not giving seats to a few candidates and their contesting as rebels was a big blow. If the party had worked towards convincing these rebels to withdraw, the situation would have been a little different. For example, evathi Puthran, a BJP rebel won as an independent candidate from Surathkal. Mohan Padil who left the party to join JD(S) would have won if he was given the ticket. Former Dy Mayor Shakila Kava lost by a narrow margin of 23 votes as BJP rebel candidate Sharada Shetty took away more than 600 votes. There were at least nine BJP rebel candidates in the fray this time and they took away a sizeable chunk of votes, which otherwise would have gone to the BJP.
Both Muslims and Christians have come out and voted in large numbers. On the other traditional BJP voters kept away from polls as they neither wanted to vote for the BJP considering its dismal neither record in the state, nor did they want to any other political party.
The BJP has held a brain-storming session following its defeat to take stock of the situation as the assembly election is just a month away. It has performed badly in Mangalore South constituency as 38 wards come under this constituency represented by BJP’s Yogish Bhat which means Yogish Bhat has a tough battle on hand this time.
Scramble for seat in Congress
Meanwhile in the Congress the scramble for assembly seat ticket among aspirants is increased manifold as Congress has tasted victory and feels the situation is quite ripe for the party to annexe this seat from the BJP after a long gap. Aspirants like J R Lobo, Ivan D Souza, Kripa Alva, Rohan Monteiro and many others are making all out efforts to get party ticket to contest from Mangalore constituency. A wrong move in selecting the candidate may cost the party dearly because they all have been lobbying hard to get the party ticket. Though J R Lobo seems to be a head of others, nothing can be ruled out for the simple reason that Ivan D Souza has also been a strong aspirant for the ticket and has been in the party for quite some time unlike J R Lobo who joined the Congress recently.
