The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) polls this year, scheduled to be be held on November 12, will see a new trend and some new faces. Of the 180 candidates confirmed by the Karnataka State Election Commission, 88 are women candidates, each from all walks of life — a driver working with a food delivery app, a cancer survivor and insurance agent, among others.
This comes after the Karnataka Government in August 2018 issued a notification, allocating 50% of ward seats for women in Urban Local Body (ULB) elections. While 18 wards have been reserved for General Category (Women), eight have been reserved for Backward Class A (Women), two for Backward Class B (Women), and one seat for Scheduled Caste.
This is reportedly the first time in Mangaluru political history that close to 50% of the candidates contesting a local body election are women.
Out of the 88 women candidates, 31 (including one Scheduled Caste reservation ward) will contest on BJP tickets, while 30 will contest for Congress. Janata Dal (Secular) has fielded three women candidates. While three women will represent the Communist Party of India (Marxist), one will be a Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate. About 18 women candidates will contest as independent candidates.
26-year old Jessel D’Souza, a young political novice, said that she was elated to be the BJP candidate in the Catholic-dominated Bendur (General Ward Number 38). Jessel is a cancer survivor and will be up against three-time corporator Naveen D'Souza.
“Election or life, I am not fighting against any other candidate. I am assuring victory for myself and my party,” says Jessel, the BJP candidate.
The MBA graduate has an agenda for her ward, if she is elected: Tackling the irregularity of water supply in some areas, the underground drainage and sewage connectivity, and the inconvenience caused both to motorists and pedestrians due to bad condition of the roads and footpaths.
“I want to expedite such rectification to provide a good living standard for the ward members,” she said.
Meghana Das, on the other hand, became a popular figure in the city as one of the few woman delivery agents working with a popular food app. For her, social service is an attitude that was embedded in her at a young age.
She will be contesting the polls on the Indian National Congress party’s ticket. Meghana will contest against BJP candidate Sandhya Mohan Acharya in Mannagudde (General Woman Ward 28).
Former Congress councillor Asha D’Silva will contest on behalf of BJP from the Falnir ward, instead of the Valencia ward (where she had contested and won in the 2013 polls) for the Congress.
“I have made my contribution to the people in my former stint, but Congress did not give me another chance. Nevertheless, I am sure people have seen the merit and elect me as their representative,” she said
Meanwhile, the newly formed party called Karnataka Rashtra Samiti (KRS) said that out of its 10 candidates who filed their nomination, two were women. However, one of the women’s application was rejected due to certain technicalities, said the party’s office-bearer, Deviprasad.
The party’s lone woman contestant, Mavis Rodrigues, an insurance agent, will be contesting as an independent candidate from Ward 33 (Kadri).
In the 2013 civic body election, 243 of the candidates were women. The Congress had bagged about 35 seats at the ULB polls, while BJP had to settle with only 19 seats. JD(S) won two seats, and one seat each was won by the CPI, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and an independent candidate. However, with the political scenario in favour of BJP — both at the Centre and the state, and due to the Reservation policy, 2019 MCC polls may spell out a different outcome.
Story by Story Infinity (Subs and Scribes Media Ventures LLP.)