The stage is set for the April 18 Lok Sabha election in Dakshina Kannada with 13 candidates, including seven Independents, remaining in the fray.
As many as 14 candidates had contested the Lok Sabha election in the constituency in 2014. There were 11 candidates in the fray in 2009. In both the elections seven Independents had contested. Hence it is the third consecutive election in which seven Independents are exercising their democratic right.
This is the fourth consecutive Parliamentary election in Dakshina Kannada (erstwhile Mangaluru) in which no woman candidate is in the fray. The last woman candidate to contest from the constituency was Lokeshwari Vinayachandra from the Janata Dal (Secular) in 1999. Of total 7,19,583 votes polled then, she had bagged 20,980.
The candidates contesting next month are Nalin Kumar Kateel (BJP); Mithun M. Rai (Congress); S. Satish Saliyan (Bahujan Samaj Party); Mohammed Iliyas (Social Democratic Party of India); Vijay Srinivas C. (Uttama Prajakeeya Party); Suprit Kumar Poojary (Hindustan Janata Paksha); Abdul Hameed, Alexander, Deepak Rajesh Coelho, Mohammed Khalid, Maxim Pinto, Venkatesh Bende, and H. Suresh Poojary (all Independents).
Among the Independents, Deepak Rajesh Coelho and Maxim Pinto had contested the last Lok Sabha elections too. Suprit Kumar Poojary too had contested from the HJP. Mr. Kateel is facing the election for the third consecutive term while Mr. Rai is contesting for the first time.
Addressing presspersons on Friday, Sasikanth Senthil S., Election Officer and Deputy Commissioner, said that that 17,24,566 voters had registered in the constituency as on March 26.
Of them 8,79,186 were women and 8,45,283 were men. In addition, there were 97 third gender voters.
He said that the voters can produce Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) and 11 other documents specified by the Election Commission.
Some of the specified documents included Aadhar card, passport, driving licence, PAN card, MNREGA job card, bank/post office pass books having photographs, IDs from the government and public sector firms.