Now, Municipal elections in-between the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections

Team Udayavani, Jun 18, 2018, 1:13 PM IST

Udupi:  The Legislative Assembly elections have concluded and next year will see the Lok Sabha elections. Amidst this, in a month’s period of time, Municipal election process shall begin. It seems there is no relief for the leaders, workers and officers.

Come September, the term of the current administration comes to an end before which the elctions have to take place. The elections have to take place before August end since the president reservation has to be announced. Hence, the election process must place in June.

Even before the political parties, the district administration and the election commission needs to get ready for the elections. Already the district administration has published the ward wise reservation list and called for submission of any objections. In Udupi district, the elections will be conducted for altogether 4 city institutions. Since the election at Kaup municipality had taken place a year back, its term has not yet come to its end.

The 35 seats at Udupi Corporation and the 23 seats of Kundapur and Karkala municipality have remained unchanged.  Only in Saligrama municipality, the numbers of seats have been increased from 14 to 16. The elections in the district will be conducted for altogether 97 wards.

Mainly, Congress and BJP parties have already done preparations. In Kundapur and Karkala, BJP is in power. It is bit of a problem to decide on the party at Saligrama. Both the parties have conducted preliminary meetings in preparation. The parties have thought on who should contest from which ward. The leaders of both the parties believe that they are bound for victory.

“We are planning to contest at all the positions in the four city institutions. It has come to knowledge that the ward reservation list has not yet come to the gaze of Congress. We suspect that someone hand. It is being said that Congress will submit its objection. We will also submit objections,” informed Yogish Shetty, JD(S) district president, Udupi.

“On Sunday we conducted a meeting on Udupi city. We discussed about the counter technique to BJP’s technique. A few more committees need to be created. We will conduct meetings at Kundapur, Karkala and Saligrama. We have submitted objections to a few reservations,” informed Udupi district Congress president, Janardan Tonse.

“We have conducted talks on the elections at the four institutions of the city at the leaders meeting and at the district committee meeting on Saturday. The party workers are excited and we are giving concentration towards registering the voters. Within a month we will finalize on the candidates,” informed district BJP president, Mattar Ratnakara Hegde, Udupi.