Udupi: Byndoor JD (S) candidate Ravi Shetty alleged that he had received a threat call on May 3, asking him to stop campaigning in the upcoming state elections on Friday, May 4.

“I received a call from an international number on my cell phone on the evening of May 3 at around 5.36 pm wherein the caller said that he was calling from Dubai. The caller told me that I should stop campaigning for elections or else I would be killed. I brought the matter to the attention of Kollur police and also filed a complaint at Byndoor police station,” he said.

Ravi alleged that a week ago he found, hair, rice, lemon, vermillion-smeared pooja articles strewn in front of his house. “I do not believe in superstitions so I threw them away into a river.”

Two days after this incident, he received another call asking to pay money for political campaign. When he said no, the caller replied saying that if he doesn’t have any money he can join their party.

“The caller tried to bribe me to join BJP. After the conversation, I made a note of the number and gave it to police station.”

“I am very disappointed with this ‘dirty politics’, but will not back off at any cost. In fact, I will increase the intensity of my election campaigns. I am well supported by district president Yogish Shetty, state president H D Kumaraswamy,” he said.

A gunman has been assigned to Ravi even though Ravi said that it would hinder his campaign. Higher officials have told him not to ignore the threat.