Key Contests: Vinay Sorake vs Manorama Madhwaraj

MANDATE 2004/ LS CONSTITUENCY WATCH - Karnataka

In India's food capital, known for the purity of its South Indian cuisine made popular by the Shivahalli Brahmin community that lives here in the cradle of dwaitavad, politics and religion revolve around the Krishna temple in the centre of the town.

Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna visited the town this morning for a quick visit to the temple. He's taking all the blessings he can get.

The Congress candidate from the Udupi assembly constituency in 1999 and former chairman of the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation, Manorama Madhwaraj, jolted the Congress by crossing over to the BJP in January.

The sitting Congress MP, Vinay Sorake who defeated the BJP here in 1999 by more than 30,000 votes, was renominated to the seat by the Congress. The BJP, unsurprisingly, nominated Madhawaraj to the seat. This has had its repercussions on the BJP's politics in the assembly constituency.

If Udupi has the reputation of being a Congress bastion, it is largely because of the splits between the various factions of the BJP here.

The party won the seat for the first time in 1996, but lost in 1998, It didn't just lose the seat, it also lost the candidate - IM Jayaram Shetty, whom the BJP had fielded, joined the Samata Party, and later the Janata Dal.

This is because the BJP has two heads here - VS Acharya who is a member of the legislative Council and Vice-President of State unit of the BJP, A.G. Kodgi.

The differences are so deep that in the Byndoor Assembly constituency, for instance, a rebel BJP candidate is standing against the official one, despite a directive from state President Ananth Kumar, expelling him from the party.

A section of the party led by Kodgi is actively canavassing on behalf of the rebel on the grounds that it was the demand of the workers.

But it is not the weakness of the BJP alone that is likely to swing the constituency towards the Congress. SM Krishna's government has done a lot of development work here. The region is ecologically sensitive, placed on the coast. This is both a blessing and curse.

Krishna formulated the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environmental Plan for the composite development of the region and has wangled a Rs 128 crore grant from the Asian Development Bank to create infrastructure including underground drainage and drinking water.

Because of the government's apparent interest in the region, private sector investors like the Nagarjuna Group and the Jindal group announced they would set up power plants. But they hadn't reckoned with a strong ecological movement in the area that demonstrated against industrialisation.

US power major Cogentrix that was the main promoter of the 1000 MW power project to be set up in Nandikur in what is now Udupi district, walked out of Karnataka in 2000, citing, among other problems, bureaucratic delays. This was largely on account of opposition on environmental grounds by the people of the region.

The government seems to have realised that it might be easier to develop service industries like education and software here, instead of trying to invite foreign investment in other projects.

A Software Technology Park, however is lying idle. When charged with criticism that as an MP for five years he did nothing, Sorake replies reasonably that with the environmentalists on the one hand and the central government on the other, what did the people expect him to do?

Blandishments to the tourism industry have failed because of Coastal Land Regulation norms. The brick tile industry that the region used to be famous for, is in crisis because everyone is building with concrete - including the owners of some tile factories.

Because of differences in the BJP, it is likely that the Udupi Lok Sabha seat will go to the Congress. However, the growth in the base of the BJP in the six assembly constituencies may help the BJP push harder to form a government in Karnataka.