MANGALURU: Despite a strong wave in favour of Congress, the BJP managed to hold on to its forte of Coastal Karnataka although it ceded some of its ground to the Grand Old Party.
The BJP which had won 16 of 18 seats in 2018, had to settle for just 13 seats now. On the other hand, the Congress improved its tally from 2 to 6. JDS drew a blank in the region. According to political pundits, the Hindutva factor helped the BJP to offset the anti-incumbency wave to a large extent and Congress’ proposal to ban Bajrang Dal further helped the saffron party to consolidate its votes. Most of the BJP candidates also improved their victory margins compared to 2018.
BJP was almost routed in Uttara Kannada where it managed to win just two of the six seats. Six-time MLA from Sirsi, Visweshwara Hegde Kageri had to bite the dust for the first time. RV Deshpande (Congress) won for the record ninth time from Haliyal.
Mankal Vaidya (Congress) won from Bhatkal by a huge margin of more than 32,000 votes. In Kumta, it was a humiliating defeat for veteran Congress leader Margaret Alva’s son Nivedith Alva as he got just 19,270 votes. Here JDS’ Suraj Naik Soni lost by a narrow margin of 676 votes to Dinakar Shetty (BJP).
In the Udupi district, it was a clean sweep for the BJP where all of its five candidates emerged victorious. Except for V Sunil Kumar, who won from Karkala by a slender margin of over 4,600 votes, the four others won by a comfortable margin. First-time MLA Kiran Kumar Kodgi won from Kundapur by a margin of 41,500 votes. Srirama Sene leader Pramod Mutalik managed to get just 4,508 votes in Karkala.