Pics: Silvester D'Souza/Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur (SP)

Kundapur, May 8: The people of the constituency here have showed that they have been backing an individual, not the party, by electing three-time MLA, Halady Srinivas Shetty, for the fourth time in a row. While the three previous elections were won by Shetty on BJP tickets, this time he has won as an independent. This victory has come with a huge margin of over 40,000 votes.

Shetty, whose forte has been to freely mingle with the people and participate in their jubilations and sorrows alike, had been a loyal BJP worker. He had not aspired for any post, was offered ministerial berth when Jagadish Shettar ministry was sworn in. Shetty reached Bangalore as per the invite to take part in the swearing in ceremony. Without any information, the berth was offered to Kota Srinivas Poojary unexpectedly, reportedly at the behest of a prominent politician from Kundapur constituency.

Feeling insulted and humiliated, Shetty announced his resignation from the assembly a few days later, and deserted BJP thereafter. The local BJP workers backed him to the hilt, notwithstanding warnings of the party leadership, and brought him a victory that he will cherish for a lifetime.

The fact that the BJP candidate, Kishore Kumar, could muster only 11778 votes as against 32,065 polled by the Congress candidate, Malyady Shivaram Shetty, and Halady Srinivas Shetty’s 63,182, speak volumes about the popularity of the winning candidate in the region.

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