Dakshina Kannada Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing a direct fight between two new faces – BJP’s Brijesh Chowta, a former Captain with the Indian Army, and R. Padmaraj, an advocate, of the Congress – for the first time after four decades.
Otherwise it was always a fight between political veterans or between a veteran and a fresher in the constituency.
It was in 1980 election that B. Janardhana Poojary who was already a one-time Member of Parliament (from the Congress) of the then Mangaluru Lok Sabha constituency, comprising Kodagu district, defeated Karamballi Sanjeeva Shetty of the then Janata Party.
Mr. Poojary was first elected to the Parliament from the same constituency by defeating A.K. Subbaiah of the Janata Party in the 1977 election.
Entry of BJP
The BJP first contested in the erstwhile Mangaluru constituency in 1984. Mr. Poojary who contested for the third time from the Congress defeated K. Rama Bhat of the BJP by a margin of 1,19,399 votes.
In the next election in 1989, the BJP changed its candidate and fielded V. Dhananjaya Kumar against Mr. Poojary. Though the BJP lost the election, it was able to increase its vote share in its second election. Mr. Poojary defeated the BJP with a margin of 91,157 votes.
Game-changer
The 1991 election was a game-changer in which the BJP wrested the seat from the Congress. The grand old party has not been able to win this seat again since then. In this election, Mr. Kumar defeated Mr. Poojary by a margin of 35,005 votes.
It was the Ram Rath Yatra by the then BJP national president L.K. Advani in the coastal belt in 1990 that changed the political direction of Dakshina Kannada in the immediate next Lok Sabha election.
The next BJP national president Murli Manohar Joshi’s ‘Ekta Yatra’ in 1991-92 helped the BJP to gain ground in the coastal district later.
Following this, Mr. Kumar again defeated Mr. Poojary in the 1996 and 1998 elections.
When the Congress lost three consecutive elections (1991, 1996, and 1998), it changed its candidate and fielded another veteran M. Veerappa Moily against Mr. Kumar in the 1999 election and lost again for the fourth consecutive time.
When the winning margin of the BJP decreased to 6,907 votes in the 1998 election and to 8,469 votes in the 1999 election, the BJP changed its four-time Member of Parliament Mr. Kumar in the next election in 2004 by fielding D. V. Sadananda Gowda who won the election against Mr. Moily by a margin of 33,415 votes.
Mangaluru becomes Dakshina Kannada
In the delimitation of constituencies in 2009, the Mangaluru constituency became Dakshina Kannada by losing Kodagu district to Mysuru Lok Sabha constituency. Following the exit of Mr. Moily after he lost two elections, the Congress again fielded Mr. Poojary against the BJP in the 2009 and 2014 elections and lost.
The new entrant Nalin Kumar Kateel of the BJP defeated Mr. Poojary twice (2009, 2014) and in 2019 election he defeated a new face of the Congress Mithun M Rai.
Both parties have now fielded new faces for the April 26 election in the constituency. The two candidates are facing any general election for the first time.
