The Hindu : Parties favour new faces to contest Lok Sabha seat?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 13, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Mangalore

Parties favour new faces to contest Lok Sabha seat?

By M. Raghuram

MANGALORE, FEB. 12. It appears that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have set in motion the process of selecting a candidate to be fielded from the Mangalore Lok Sabha constituency. And if the party workers' opinion is any indication, both the parties are set to field new faces to contest the elections.

The Congress and the BJP have always preferred senior leaders over novices, so much so that veterans such as B. Janardhana Poojary, President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, M. Veerappa Moily, former Chief Minister, and V. Dhananjaya Kumar, MP, have represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha.

But according to party functionaries, both the parties are thinking about selecting new faces to contest the Parliamentary elections. However, a section within both the parties continues to believe in the strength of the old "warhorses".

The Mangalore Lok Sabha constituency remained a Congress bastion till 1991. Prominent leaders of that party including Shankar Alva, K.K. Shetty, and Poonacha represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha. Mr. Poojary won from the constituency in 1977, 1989, 1984, and 1989.

But in 1991, the BJP reversed this trend and its candidate, Mr. Dhananjaya Kumar, has since retained the constituency by trouncing Mr. Poojary and Mr. Moily.

But political observers are now citing a different reason for the defeat of the Congress in the past four elections. They feel that the caste factor has played a crucial role in the turn of events. The feeling among party workers is that the candidates from the majority communities have not been given a chance to compete in the elections.

Youth leaders in the Congress feel that young candidates should be given a chance to contest the elections. According to them, many voters from the majority communities have noticed this trend among the Congress and the BJP, and have abstained from voting to register their protest.

This could be true as statistics indicate that the margin with which Mr. Dhananjay Kumar won against Mr. Poojary and Mr. Moily in 1998 and 1999, respectively, is less than 6,500 votes.

The voting pattern has also undergone a change since the 1996 elections as polling has come down by six per cent in the past three elections. According to observers, candidates from the majority communities have not got a chance to contest the elections in the past 27 years.

The KPCC, which has started selecting candidates for the Parliamentary elections, held a session to screen 93 applicants two days ago in Bangalore. According to Mr. Poojary, many new faces have sought the party ticket to contest the elections.

But he refused to divulge details about the session.

According to party sources, the KPCC General Secretary and National Students' Union of India leader, Manjunath Bhandary, is also in the race for the party ticket, in which case Mr. Moily, who wants to contest from the Mangalore constituency, will have a tough fight at hand.

Though rumours are agog about the BJP's candidate, the party seems to have zeroed in on Mr. Dhananjay Kumar and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, D.V. Sadananda Gowda.

Mr. Dhananjay Kumar has the distinction of defeating Congress stalwarts in the past four elections. He is also one of the six BJP candidates who have won Lok Sabha seats in the State.

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