Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, May 16: Persons who tried to cash in on their individual charisma to influence the voters and get into the political system in the district have miserably failed.

Former deputy superintendent of police, Anupama Shenoy, who hails from Uchila in Kaup constituency, and had resigned from her job to fight against injustice and started her own Bharatiya Janashakti Congress Party, could muster only 1,634 votes. Anupama was hopeful of making an impact on the electorate based on the fight she carried out against injustice. She was allotted the symbol of okra and she had undertaken house to house visits to campaign for votes by travelling by auto rickshaw.

Anupama Shenoy, M C Madan and Srikar Prabhu

M C Madan, who was working as sub-inspector in Bajpe police station and had opted for voluntary retirement from service, had fought as independent candidate from the city (south) constituency. Having been backed by the inclination to undertake social work, he had left his job and hoped to make it big in the election. However, he got only 708 votes.

Independent candidate from city (south) constituency, Srikar Prabhu, who was frustrated at his expulsion from the BJP a few years ago, and who created ripples by succeeding to attract large crowd for his rally, got only 861 votes in the election.

Several organizations had given call to the people to register their opposition to Yettinahole project by opting to press the NOTA (none of the above) button in the electronic voting machine. However, people do not seem to have taken this seriously, going by the fact that people did not resort to this option in a big way. The only constituency where NOTA got sizable votes was in Sullia where 1310 votes were cast in its favour.