Mangalore : The former Mangalore Constituency, now re -christened as Mangalore South is the heart of Mangalore. The Candidate who wins here  represents entire  Mangalore City.  Mangalore North and present Mangalore (Ullal ) Constituency represents suburb of Mangalore. In this context Mangalore South represents Urban elite of Mangalore.

The cast vise and religion vise break up of voters goes like this : Billavas 49,000 Bunts 21,000, Gowda Saraswath 17,000, Christians 42,000, Muslims 29,000 and others 39,000. Out of 12 elections held since 1957 Gowda Saraswths won seven times and Christians won five times.

The present MLA Yogesh Bhatt won four times from 1994 to 2008 but ever since  JR Lobo entered the electoral field as a Congress candidate for the 2013 Assembly election, after resigning from civil service, he seems to have an edge over Yogesh Bhatt. Even though Yogesh Bhatt is a rare politician in BJP who has not tarnished his image, he is swimming against the Congress tide. The mood at present in the Constituency is favouring  Congress and JR Lobo. JR Lobo has excellent public relations  and he is a Bureaucrat turned  politician  of rare quality. It seems everything going in his way right now, and his only challenger of any waitage  is Yogesh Bhatt who is finding it difficult to have any loopholes in the Congress baston.

The other candidates like Changappa from JDS will find it difficult to garnar enough votes because of the recent split in JDS district unit. The another factor is that, he is an out sider to the district. Other vise he is an excellent Lawyer and a well known social activist.
Dayanand Shetty from KJP is a candidate  capable of  garnering enough bunts votes, because, bunts community as a whole is totally disappointed with both BJP and Congress. They are having 20,000 votes in the constituency. He will prove a thorn in the flesh of BJP in the final countdown.  

Vsanth Achary from CPI(M) is a very active  agitator in high lighting labor related and howkers problems of Mangalore. Even though communist party of India is a long time participant in the assembly elections, the possibility of its candidate getting more than 5,000 votes is a distant possibility.

Yogesh Shetty is an independent candidate and president of Tulunadu Rakshana Vedike from Jeppu . He is an unknown quantity in politics and yet to prove his mettle.

Jaleel Krishnapur  from Socialist Democratic party of India  (SDPI) is a young candidate who says, both main stream parties   of India failed the common man and the socialism is the only way out for the vast majority of the population. He want to prove a point to the people about the bogus political parties.

Deric Pinto from Pyramid party of India is a candidate for the Mangalore South assembly election. PPI is a little known political party in Mangalore and any chances of getting substantial votes are very slim.

Over all, there is a healthy competition between major political parties and few independents  throne in. The present mood of the electorate seems towards Congress and its candidate JR Lobo in Mangalore South Constituency.