Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Dec 24: In Dakshina Kannada district, 374 candidates remained in the fray for taluk panchayat (TP) elections, while 115 stayed on in the zilla panchayat (ZP) election, at the end of the   time limit given for the withdrawal of their nominations on Thursday December 23 evening.

On Thursday, a large number of nominations, filed predominantly by those who had entered the fray as independents, were withdrawn. A few among them had been fielded as dummy candidates by certain parties. Several of the candidates had filed nominations as a challenge to the official candidates of parties, after being disappointed at not getting official nod from the parties.

The party-wise equations for the ZP election are, BJP (35), Congress (35), JDS (20), BSP (1), CPM (2), and SDPI (7). In the TP elections, Congress (128), BJP (129), JDS (53), CPI (2), CPM (12), and SDPI (21) are in the fray.

Elections are being held for 129 seats spread over five TPs in the district, whereas the number of seats to be won for ZP is 35.