UDUPI: From 1972 to 1994, the Karkala Assembly constituency elected tall Congress leader and former chief minister M Veerappa Moily consecutively. The wave for Congress continued in 1999 even when Moily’s confidant, late H Gopal Bhandary, contested on the party ticket. But in 2004, the present Energy Minister, V Sunil Kumar, who was a Bajrang Dal leader, stopped the Congress juggernaut and won by a margin of 9,795 votes.
But Moily’s fame and Bhandary’s well-crafted politics got him one last victory in 2008 and he won by a
wafer-thin margin of 1,537 votes. Sunil Kumar was back in 2013 and again in 2018 as he defeated Bhandary by riding the Hindutva wave.
Moily, the first ethnic Tuluva chief minister of the state, began his career as a lawyer in Karkala in 1969 and earned excellent goodwill by helping landless farmers understand their rights. That was what helped him win the elections repeatedly.
Of over 1,88,000 voters in the constituency, the majority are Billavas with about 50,000 votes, followed by Bunts (40,000), Christians and Muslims, each with around 18,000 votes. The remaining are Gouda Saraswatha Brahmins, Rajapura Saraswatha Brahmins and Vishwakarma among others.
The Hindutva factor has been playing out quite strongly here for the last two decades, consolidating Hindu voters and helping BJP. This time, however, the party wants to focus on development too, apart from Hindutva.
Sunil Kumar is highly likely to be the BJP candidate again, as he does not seem to face any sentiment of anti-incumbency from the voters. For him, the biggest challenge is not from Congress, but from Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik, who has accused Sunil of deviating from the core Hindutva ideology. The two shades of Hindutva playing out here has made the contest interesting.
Congress is yet to declare its candidate, but names of contractors, Muniyal Uday Kumar Shetty and DR Raju, and loyal partyman Manjunath Poojary are doing the rounds. The feeling on the ground is that if Congress gives the ticket to Uday Kumar Shetty, the fight will be intense as Bunts may support him. The other aspirant, Manjunath Poojary, who is being supported by Moily, is favoured only in Hebri and surrounding areas as he was a zilla panchayat member.
Political observers said that BJP is focusing on the development agenda as the constituency has more educated voters now. Earlier this year, the MSME department of the central government sanctioned Rs 5 crore to start a Jackfruit Processing Cluster at Nitte, Karkala. It provides direct employment to around 1,000 local women and may enhance the income of 5,000 farmers in the region. The other project is the Parashurama Theme Park, developed on top of Umikkal Hill at Bailoor, Karkala at a cost of Rs 10 crore, which has become a major tourist attraction now.
The Yennehole Lift Irrigation project of the Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Ltd will irrigate around 1,500 hectares of land and recharge groundwater in and around nine villages of Karkala taluk. This project, being executed at a cost of Rs 108 crore, aims to supply water to recharge two lakes in the taluk. All these projects may figure in the BJP campaign, while Congress is planning to target Sunil Kumar on corruption charges. Muthalik too is going hammer and tongs at Kumar on the graft issue.