Uttara Kannada needs a whiff of fresh air!

Karwar: The Uttara Kannada Lok Sabha constituency is now looking for a change. Both the Indian National Congress and BJP-JDS alliance are looking for fresh faces, but the old ones persist and may do an encore in the Lok Sabha election candidate list.

The BJP is now stuck with the old guard Ananth Kumar Hegade who has won three times in a row in since 2009, 2014 and 2019, his vote earning has been on the rise in all three elections in the past starting from 3.39 lakh votes in 2009 to 5.46 lakh in 2014 and 7.86 lakh in 2019 which has established that BJP or Ananth Kumar Hegade as a candidate is unassailable in lead. With this unbroken record of victories, the BJP is unlikely to look for a fresh face from here. The party cadres are staunchly rallying behind him and with the JDS cadres joining in there is no way for Ananth Kumar Hegade to lose here.

Hegade is known for his strong Hindutva stance. He is the first candidate in the country from BJP to declare that ‘Muslims need not vote for me’ as early as 2009, which had shocked the Muslim strongholds namely Bhatkal and Honnavar assembly constituencies, where Muslim voters are divided into BJP and INC camps.

The Navahiites, a specially converted Muslim clan had fully supported Modi’s leadership and the top Muslim congregation under the Tanzeem organisation in the 2019 elections, despite the extreme rightist stance of the MP. Tanzeem has over 50,000 votes under its belt just in the Bhatkal-Honnavar assembly segment.

BJP is strong in Kumta, Karwar, Yellapur, and Sirsi assembly segments. The Congress stronghold in Haliyal has been intact despite a split in Maratha voters between RV Deshpande and SL Ghotnekar in the 2023 assembly elections. Sunil Hegade of BJP and Suraj Naik Soni independent in Kumta and Haliyal, were the largest vote earners despite strong opposition from Congress.

Suraj Naik Soni is a maverick of sorts. In the 2013 assembly elections, had won over 22000 votes over Sharada Mohan Shetty of Congress in Kumta assembly but could not secure the BJP ticket to contest. Two assembly segments of this constituency are in Belagavi district namely Khanapur and Kittur which also turned in a larger number of votes for all the three Lok Sabha elections for BJP. Suraj Naik Soni who is now in the Janata Dal (Secular) is now sitting on the fence as the JDS has made an alliance with the BJP and the party is in no mood to ask for sharing this seat for Soni.

A Namdhari (Eediga) community leader Soni is financially strong but his indecisiveness has left him high and dry both in 2023 and the conditions have not changed in 2024 in the run-up to the elections.

The BJP-JDS alliance and the Indian National Congress both appear to be another vote cutter in Anand Asnotikar (former MLA) and have not less than 20,000 votes from the fishermen’s community.

Anand’s vote-cutting tactics do not scare the BJP, as the previous three election results put the BJP candidate on a firm footing with an increasing vote share during the last three elections.

The INC has two contenders -Nivedit Alva (son of Margaret Alva) and Prashanth Deshpande (son of RV Deshpande), both of whom are in their 40s, and one of them can be considered by the Congress party for a party ticket.

Mankal Vaidya MLA and State Minister for Fisheries and Ports who has considerable influence on the fishermen voters in castes and sub castes of the fishermen community can make a dent in the votes of the BJP. He also has the support of Tanzeem. But these dynamics will not work in the Lok Sabha elections as the electorate size exceeds 14 lakh voters. Similarly the Congress MLA from Sirsi Bheemanna Naik is a Namdhari strongman and can be great influence among the Namdhari voters.