Mangaluru: With the polling day nearing, all the major political parties and independent candidates are doing their best to woo voters to cast their valuable votes in their favour. Two major political parties, the Congress and the BJP have already showed their strength by pulling in star campaigners including Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mangaluru South, an Assembly segment which has been watched closely by political annalists and politicians alike, is proving to be a high voltage constituency as 11 contenders are trying their luck to gain entrance into the Vidhana Soudha at any cost.

Traditional methods like road shows, door to door campaigns, public meetings and announcements through vehicles are a common scene in the area with candidates and their supporters moving from early in the morning till late in the night, to do their best to claim their share of the the vote before the official campaign comes to an end on the evening of May 10th.

The new generation technology like Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram has seen their roles increase as most of the candidates are using these platforms to reach their campaign to the younger more “tech savvy” demographic and boost their chances by sharing videos, posters and messages which turns out to bee pretty efficient and light on the wallets.

The constituency was the stronghold of the Congress party till late 1983, after which they to get into a straight fight with the BJP for the last six elections. The BJP had a strong base year between 1994 and 2008 with its senior leader N Yogish Bhat representing the constituency for 4 straight terms. The tables turned during the 2013 elections when the Congress fielded a political novice and former IAS officer, J R Lobo to contest against Bhat, subsequently helping the Congress get back on the track after almost 19 years.

This time however, the scenario is different. The Congress party has given the ticket to incumbent MLA J R Lobo, and is trying its best to retain the seat. On the other hand, the BJP, which was almost in trouble after announcing the ticket to D Vedavyas Kamath due to the number of aspirants, is fully charged and ready to snatch the coveted the seat away from the Congress.

Fueling the excitement is the entry of CPI(M) candidate Sunil Kumar Bajal and Ex-cop Madan Patel, who have their own fan following and are actively involved in campaigning to win from here for the first time.

Another major twist in the plot is the entry of Srikar Prabhu… once a BJP strongman and now an independent contestant, he has made the big wigs worry a bit. Apart from the aforementioned contestants, there are 7 more contenders who are either independent or from regional parties, trying to get their share of the precious votes.

The constituency having 38 wards under the Mangalore City Corporation, has many developmental projects that have been undertaken in the last five years, and is one among the to-be-smart-cities of India. But, as the opposition candidates have pointed out, there are a lot of issues concerning the city that have yet gone unaddressed this is the key talking point being used by the sundry party candidates to sling mud at each other.

Newskarnataka.com met a few of the contenders of this constituency and got a Field Report of their campaigning process. Here are the excerpts:

Sunil Kumar Bajal

Srikar Prabhu

J R Lobo