Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Dec 1: The election commission has announced dates for holding gram panchayat (GP) elections. In the first phase, 109 gram panchayats in Dakshina Kannada and 67 gram panchayats of Udupi district will go to polls on December 22. In the second phase on December 27, 114 gram panchayats in Dakshina Kannada and 87 in Udupi district will face the election.

Gram panchayat elections are not fought on the basis of party symbols. However, for politicians connected with the BJP, they have more responsibility of winning the seats as they have won Lok Sabha and assembly election, as their prestige is in stakes.

On account of the coronavirus pandemic, politics had taken the backseat for the last eight months in Karnataka. Now the fear of coronavirus has come down and political parties are drawing strategies to bag maximum local bodies. As the BJP government rules the centre and the state, the elections become a question of prestige for the ruling party. For the Congress too, which faced huge drubbing in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections, this is a huge challenge.

In 2015, the BJP had suffered lot of reverses. In assembly election too its performance was not very good. It however recovered It has planned coming together programme at different places.