MANGALURU: In a stunning political misfire that has left the BJP red-faced in its stronghold of Coastal Karnataka, one of its candidates has returned with a rare and humiliating result - zero votes. The debacle unfolded in the Kadaba Town Panchayat elections, the results of which were announced on Wednesday.
Prema, the BJP's candidate from Ward No. 1 (Kalara), failed to secure even a single vote out of the 418 polled in the ward. The seat was decisively won by Congress candidate Thamanna Jabeen, who polled 201 votes, defeating Independent contender Jainaabi Adam by a margin of 62 votes. The SDPI candidate in the fray managed to secure 74 votes. The ward, reserved for BCA (Woman), had four candidates in the contest.
Prema, who is not a voter in Ward No. 1, had also thrown her hat in the ring in Ward No. 6, where she resides, but the outcome there offered little consolation. She garnered 177 votes and lost to Congress's Neelavathi Shivaram M.S., who polled 314 votes.
BJP leaders attempted to contain the fallout, attributing the zero-vote outcome in Ward No. 1 to the area's Muslim-majority demographic. Dakshina Kannada BJP president Satish Kumapa said the local mandala unit had decided post-nomination to back Independent candidate Jainaabi Adam instead, citing low electoral prospects for the party in that ward.
However, the Congress was quick to capitalise on the moment. District Congress Committee president K Harish Kumar pointed out that even Prema's booth president and her two proposers seemed to have voted against her.
Former Zilla Panchayat member M.S. Mohammed alleged that the BJP leadership was responsible for its own embarrassment. "They fielded an outsider to block Thamanna Jabeen's chances of becoming Town Panchayat president, and later shifted support to Adam, which backfired," he said, adding that the party could have simply nominated Adam as its official candidate.
Interestingly, the BJP was not entirely averse to fielding Muslim candidates - Adam Kundoli contested from Ward No. 3 under the party's banner but lost to the Congress after securing only 75 votes.
This was the first election held for the Kadaba Town Panchayat after its upgrade from a gram panchayat. The Congress secured a clear majority, winning 8 out of the 13 seats, while the BJP managed to claim 5.