Puttur : The Puttur assembly election 2013 is really a fight  between veteran politician and Congress candidate Shakuntala Shetty who is recently defected from BJP and between BJP candidate and well known figure in Puttur Sanjeeva Matandoor. The other candidates like Dinesh BN from JDS, Jayaram Bhatt Madavu from KJP and Abubakkar Sidiqi from SDPI are having marginal effect on over all polling in constituency.

Shakuntala Shetty who has been side lined by BJP because of her proximity of Ram Bhatt who is opposed to king maker Kaldaka Prabhakar Bhat. Earlier in 2008 she has contested election as independent (Swabiman Paksha ) and able to secure 25,000 votes it self shows that she is a winning candidate if she contested in any major political party ticket. This time she got the backing of Congress party along with  disgruntled BJP vote bank.

Sanjeeva Matandoor of BJP is a difficult customer to beat because of his clean image and leader ship qualities. He got the backing of RSS and he is the uniting factor among BJP cadres. So Puttur constituency will see a tough fight between Congress and BJP candidates    the presence of KJP influence is minimal in Puttur and no major leader of KJP visited the constituency. It will prove to be a set back to Jayaram Bhat Madavu and slicing of any major chunk of BJP votes by KJP is unlikely.

Even JDS is in dissare because of its infightings in DK district and recent desertions of its wards from the party. Dinesh BN will find it difficult to secure enough votes to make any dent in the election results.

Adubakar Sidiqi from SDPI is a prolific speaker of socialist ideals and oppose to both Congress and BJP ideology. But these parties choose low key campaigning and vanish as soon as the election is over. So people don’t take small parties seriously even though candidate is capable.