The Hindu

Udupi, Oct 4: The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday indulged in accusing each other of misleading the electorate for the October 5 Kota Zilla Panchayat bypoll.

Of the 25 seats in the Udupi Zilla Panchayat, the Congress has 13 and the BJP 11. The Mr. Poojary, who was representing Kota in the ZP, relinquished that seat after becoming an MLC, necessitating a bypoll.

The contest for the Kota ZP seat will be a straight one between the Congress and the BJP, represented by Shankar Kundar and Jaganath Amin, respectively. Of the 30,582 voters in the constituency, 16,510 are women and 14,072 men.

Congress’ allegation

Addressing presspersons here the Congress leader and former MLA K. Jayaprakash Hegde said that the BJP was misleading people on various issues in Kota. The handbills distributed by the BJP in the Kota ZP constituency were a proof its desperation. The record of the BJP government in the State was lackadaisical. It had reduced the allocation for irrigation in its budget. There was no distribution of houses under the Ashraya scheme.

BJP retorts

Speaking to presspersons, MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary said that Kota witnessed a lot of development during his tenure as a ZP member.

Many developmental activities were taken up in Mannur and Barkur villages under the “Swarna gram yojana” . The primary health centre at Kota was upgraded into community health centre and Rs. 1.95 crore had been allocated for the construction of its building.