The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a clear majority winning 44 seats of the 60 wards in the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) polls. The Indian National Congress (INC) secured 14 seats and two other seats were won by Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) candidates.
The result is a turn-around from the 2013 polls, in which the Congress had secured 35 seats and the BJP had won only 20 seats.
The coastal district in recent years has turned into a key bastion for BJP with wins in the state Assembly and Parliamentary elections. However since 1983, for six consecutive terms, Congress had secured a majority in the MCC, INC had formed an alliance with JD(S) post the 1997 MCC elections. The local polls had remained elusive to BJP except for a term between 2007 and 2013.
Securing victory at MCC polls was seen as a significant milestone for BJP this year, given this is the home turf of BJP MP and party state President Nalin Kumar Kateel. Also, except Mangaluru constituency won by Congress legislator UT Khader, the BJP had won six of the seven legislative constituencies.
The BJP selected 40 new faces for the MCC polls, among the notable BJP candidates were former Deputy Mayor Sumithra Kariya (Baikampady ward), Lokesh Bollaje Lokesh Bollaje (Katipalla East), Diwakar (Cantonment) Sudeer Shetty (Kodialbail), Premananda Shetty (Mangaladevi) have won polls, whereas its minority candidates Arshad (Kudroli), Asha D Silva (Falnir), Jessel D Souza (Bendoor) faced defeat in their respective wards.
Meanwhile, among the Congress leaders; former Mayor of MCC, M Shashidhar Hegde and Bhaskar K retained their position at Derebail South and Padav east respectively. However the party's another former Mayor Harinath was defeated by BJP's Lohith Amin, incumbent Congress corporator from Kulai Prathibha Kulai also suffered a loss in Idya West.
SDPI candidates Muneeb Bengare from Bengare and Shamshad Abubakkar from Katipalla were the only two who have secured the victory for their party. Former mayor Gulzar Banu, who contested independently after not receiving a ticket from the Congress party, lost the polls.
Unlike in 2013, when the Janata Dal (Secular) had won two seats, and CPI (M) and Independent candidates had secured one seat each, none of their candidates managed to win this time.
Speaking to the media following the result announcement, Mangaluru (South) MLA Vedavyas Kamath thanked voters for helping the BJP to win the polls and said that the party will work on immediate priorities such as online payment of bills and formation of ward committees. On the other hand, former MLA Mohiuddin Bava said that there was no anti-incumbency against the Congress, but the BJP secured its win due to the ongoing Ram Mandir issue. "Also, note that Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) still does not command the voters confidence," he said.
In the polls, the Mangaluru city corporation witnessed 59.67% turnout which was significantly lower than the turnout of 63.33% in 2013. over 180 contestants were in the fray, it was for the first time that nearly 50% of the seats were reserved for women as per the Karnataka government notification in August 2018.
Story by Story Infinity (Subs and Scribes Media Ventures LLP.)