Congress fields Muniyalu Uday Shetty in Karkala, Ashok Kumar Rai in Puttur for Karnataka Assembly elections
The Hindu
After much deliberation and amid stiff competition for the party ticket, Congress chose former MLA J.R. Lobo, a retired bureaucrat to take on incumbent D. Vedavyasa Kamath of the BJP in Mangaluru City South
With the third list of 43 candidates released on April 15, the Congress named candidates for all seats in Udupi district while it is yet to identify a candidate in one constituency — Mangaluru City North — in Dakshina Kannada district for the Karnataka Assembly elections, scheduled for May 10.
The party had left Karkala from the first two lists where Minister and incumbent V. Sunil Kumar is trying his chances for the fifth time. It has now fielded entrepreneur, philanthropist and social worker Muniyalu Uday Shetty, a confidant of former Chief Minister M. Veerappa Moily, who represented Karkala from 1972 to 1999.
Riding the Datta Mala wave, Mr. Kumar won the election in his first attempt in 2004, defeating H. Gopal Bhandary of the Congress. Though Mr. Bhandary snatched the constituency from Mr. Kumar in 2008, the Minister won the next two elections in 2013 and 2018. A simple politician, Mr. Bhandary suffered an untimely death on July 4, 2019, while heading from Bengaluru to Mangaluru by a KSRTC bus.
Sri Rama Sene leader Pramod Mutalik has announced his candidature from Karkala.
In Puttur Assembly constituency, Congress has named Ashok Kumar Rai as its candidate. His main rivals are BJP’s Asha Thimmappa Gowda and Divyaprabha of th e JD(S).
BJP denied the ticket to incumbent Sanjeev Matandur in Puttur, the home turf of State BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel. Asha Thimmappa Gowda was Dakshina Kannada zilla panchayat president.
Ashok Kumar Rai, an entrepreneur, Kambla patron and philanthropist, was with the BJP for about two decades. He recently switched over to Congress claiming it is not easy to get people’s work done with a BJP government in Karnataka. In choosing Mr. Rai, the Congress denied the ticket to former MLA Shakunthala Shetty, who too was earlier with the BJP.
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