Karkala, Apr 5: The delay in finalization of the candidate for Karkala Assembly Constituency in Udupi district has caused anxiety among the Congress workers who intend to wrest the segment from BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
A few Congress workers from the constituency on Wednesday held a press meet to publicly urge the top leaders of the party to finalize the candidate so that they can formally launch campaign.
“It is the responsibility of the party high command to clear the confusion over the candidate for the Karkala Assembly seat”, said Daniel Ranger, a Congress party worker. He was accompanied by Taranath Kotian, Sheikh Shabbir, and Valerian Pais, Ranjit C T in the press meet.
The party workers had urged the high command to select the Congress leader, Muniyal Uday Shetty, as the party candidate as he had been strengthening the party from the grassroots level for the last two years, he said.
He said that Harsha Moily, son of the former Chief Minister M Veerappa Moily, had stated that he would not contest from the seat. Gopal Bhandary, Congress leader and former MLA, too did not appear to have any inclination to contest from there.
After Mr Harsha Moily left the fray, the leaders in charge of the party in Udupi district, G.A. Bawa and Bharat Mundodi, were nowhere to be seen. “We want to fight the elections under the guidance of Mr Veerappa Moily and Mr Bhandary with Mr. Shetty as the candidate,” he said.
The Congress had not only lost the Karkala seat to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Assembly elections in 2013 but had also failed to win a single Zilla Panchayat seat in Karkala constituency in the subsequent Zilla Panchayat elections.
It had also lost all the 19 seats of the Karkala Taluk Panchayat to the BJP. As many as 26 gram panchayats in the constituency too were under BJP-supported candidates.
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