Congress bites dust in Udupi dist; BJP sweeps all five constituencies

Udupi, May 15: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made a clean sweep by winning all the five Assembly Constituencies in Udupi district in the 2018 State Assembly elections, the results of which were announced here on Tuesday.

In fact, the victory of the BJP was emphatic in all the five Assembly constituencies. The BJP not only retained the Karkala Assembly constituency, but wrested three seats — Udupi, Byndoor and Kaup from the Congress.

Such was the scale of its victory that even the Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports, Pramod Madhwaraj, had to taste defeat at the hands of his classmate of school days, K. Raghupati Bhat, by a margin of 12,044 votes.

Mr. Bhat polled 84,946 votes, while Mr. Madhwaraj secured 72,902 votes.

Halady Srinivas Shetty, the four-term MLA from Kundapur, who returned to the BJP fold, defeated his nearest rival from the Congress party and president of State unit of Indian National Trade Unions Congress (INTUC), Rakesh Malli, by a margin of 56,405 votes, the highest margin in the district. This is Mr. Shetty’s fifth consecutive win from the constituency.

In fact Mr. Shetty improved his victory margin of 40,611 votes in 2013 Assembly elections, which was the highest margin of victory in the district in that polls.

Mr. Shetty polled 1,03,434 votes, while Mr. Malli received 47,029 votes.

Thekkatte Prakash Shetty of Janata Dal (Secular) got 2,712 votes. In Karkala Assembly constituency, the three-term BJP MLA, V. Sunil Kumar, defeated H. Gopal Bhandary of Congress party by a margin of 42,566 votes.

B.M. Sukumar Shetty, BJP candidate, won the Byndoor Assembly constituency seat by defeating Congress candidate, K. Gopal Poojary, who had won four times from this constituency, by a margin of 24,393 votes.

Anupama Shenoy, former Deputy Superintendent of Police and Secretary of Bharatiya Janashakti Congress, and the lone woman candidate in Assembly elections in Udupi district, came third place by getting 1,634 votes.