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National

Polarisation could hold the key

GOVIND D. BELGAUMKAR

Dakshina Kannada was hardly in the news until last September, when a series of attacks on Christian prayer halls brought it to national and international attention.

Then again this January, a savage attack on women at a pub in Mangalore by the Sri Rama Sene sparked national outrage. This was soon followed by the abduction and harassment of daughter of Kasaragod MLA C.H. Kunhambu for fraternising with a Muslim boy during a bus journey.

Police have recorded at least 20 incidents of moral policing since July 2008 in the Dakshina Kannada district, with its headquarters in Mangalore.

When Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury described these developments as the ‘Talibanisation of Mangalore,’ the then Mayor Ganesh Hosabettu — from the BJP — initiated legal proceedings against her, saying it amounted to calling Mangaloreans “anti-nationals” as the Taliban were committed to destroying India. Among the charges slapped on the Minister was Section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etcetera) of the Indian Penal Code.

The Minister’s party colleague B. Janardhana Poojary, who is contesting the elections from the Dakshina Kannada constituency — Mangalore before delimitation — after a gap of 11 years, has promised to change the profile of the constituency. “People are fed up of repeated disturbances,” he says, pledging to bring peace and development.

He faces a challenge for the ‘secular’ vote in the person of the CPI(M) nominee B. Madhava, who has the support of the Janata Dal (Secular).

At the other end of the political spectrum is newcomer Nalin Kumar Kateel of the BJP, a full-time RSS worker for 12 years. Mr. Kateel is promising development through agro-based industries and by attracting investment.

Looking to upset Mr. Kateel’s ambitions is his former RSS colleague and Hindutva ideologue K. Rama Bhat, a former BJP MLA from the Puttur assembly segment.

Mr. Bhat split ways with the BJP during the last Assembly elections.

The Congress camp appears to be more confident than the BJP about victory. The party hopes to benefit from the consolidation of the minority votes following the attacks on prayer halls. The BJP on its part is banking on the majority vote.

Mangalore has been long considered a potential IT hub after Bangalore (confirmed recently by a study undertaken by the National Association of Software and Services Companies, NASSCOM) and its tourism potential remains untapped. Infrastructure is craving for attention: the roads in the district are in pathetic shape; fisheries are becoming less lucrative, and areca nut, rubber, cocoa and cashew growers are struggling to improve yields.

But the candidates have not spelt out precisely how they propose to promote development.

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