Can Feel Undercurrent of Support for Mithun Rai – Ivan D’Souza

Can Feel Undercurrent of Support for Mithun Rai – Ivan D’Souza

Mangaluru: “Today, the political campaigning stops at 6:00 pm. All the leaders of the party have campaigned in the entire district. In this election, we are seeing a change. The youth are supporting our party this time. The general public wants to give a chance to a young person (Mithun Rai) and they don’t want to disappoint the youth of this district. The important issue in this election is that for the past ten years, Nalin Kumar Kateel has not contributed anything to this district. This issue is being discussed by the public as well. We firmly believe that we will win this election,” said Congress MLC and Parliamentary Secretary Ivan D’Souza in a press meet held at the DCC Office, Mallikatta here, on April 16.

Addressing the mediapersons Ivan D’Souza said, “Our candidate has showcased good values and a good body language. There is also an undercurrent among the people. Mithun Rai has met a maximum number of people. Congress Leaders such as Ramanath Rai, Shakuntala Shetty, JR Lobo, and Harish Kumar have also campaigned for him. People are realizing that they should not have made the Siddaramiah govt. to lose. In this way, there is a lot of sympathy among the people and it will work out for us in this election.”

He further said, “When Modi visited Mangaluru, he never spoke about any of the issues pertaining to the district. Modi never answered the question of what is his contribution to the district. He only spoke of emotional things. The BJP leaders in this election have behaved in a way that shows that lying is their religion. Modi said that he had visited Nehru Maidan several times. This might be his only contribution to Mangaluru. Another issue of this election is the Vijaya Bank merger. I had visited the worker’s colony of Vijaya Bank. They had told me that they were initially angry with Congress. They said that this time they are not angry, instead they will support us.”

On April 14, Shatrughan Sinha visited the Dakshina Kannada district to campaign for Mithun Rai. However, he only addressed one rally in Mudipu and never showed up at a rally held in Kadri. When questioned about this inconvenience, Ivan D’Souza admitted that it was a result of lack of coordination between party workers. He added that Shatrughan Sinha was adamant on addressing only one meeting per Lok Sabha constituency.

At a BJP campaign rally held in Udupi on April 15, BJP leader C T Ravi had said that this election was “Lotus party versus Loot us party”. In a separate statement to the press, Former minister and Congress leader Ramanath Rai hit back at C T Ravi and said that the Lotus party itself has become the “Loot us” party.