WINNER: The Congress candidate H. Gopal Bhandary (centre), who won the Karkala Assembly seat, waving to his supporters in Udupi on Sunday.

Udupi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demonstrated its hold on Udupi district by winning four of the five Assembly seats on Sunday.

The Congress had the consolation of winning the lone seat of Karkala, a key constituency, which had elected the former Chief Minister M. Veerappa Moily six times in a row. The BJP retained the prestigious Kundapur constituency with a whopping margin of 25,083 votes and the Kaup Assembly constituency with a slender margin of 967 votes. The BJP snatched the Byndoor seat from the Congress. The BJP retained the Udupi seat, where the former MLA Raghupati Bhat defeated the Congress candidate and son of the BJP MP Manorama Madhwaraj, Pramod Madhwaraj, by 2,479 votes. In Kaup Assembly constituency, the BJP candidate Lalaji R. Mendon defeated his Congress rival and former Minister Vasanth V. Salian in a repeat of the 2004 election results. Mr. Mendon polled 45,961 votes and Mr. Salian polled 44,994 votes. BJP candidate and former MLA Halady Srinivas Shetty defeated Congress candidate and former Minister K. Jayaprakash Hegde in Kundapur. This is Mr. Shetty’s third successive victory from the constituency. Mr. Shetty polled 71,695 votes while Mr. Hegde polled 46,612 votes. In Byndoor, K. Lakshminarayana of the BJP defeated the former MLA and Congress candidate K. Gopal Poojary by 7,970 votes.

In a straight contest for the Karkala segment, Congress candidate and former MLA H. Gopal Bhandary defeated his nearest rival V. Sunil Kumar (BJP) by 1,537 votes.

Mangalore, May 18: A Konkani Book  “Catholic Sabechi Charitra” ( Histroy of Catholic Sabha)  written by Dr Gerald Pinto,  Kallianpur was released by the Bishop of Belgaum Rev Dr. Peter Machado on 18^th May 08.

The book release function held at Bishop’s House Mangalore during  the 29th general body meeting of Catholic Sabha Central Committee. 

Kuwait, May 18: Kundapur Varado Welfare Association, Kuwait's(KVWA) 3rd General Body Meeting for the year 2008 was held on 16th May. It started with a prayer by Sunitha Mendonca. The one of the main agenda of the meeting was the election of new Office-bearers for the year 2008-2010.

The annual report for the year 2007-2008 was presented by the President, followed by financial statement by the treasurer and confirmation of the financials by the auditor.

As a start of the election process the outgoing President Nancy Menezes thanked all the members present for their support during her tenure. She particularly thanked the executive committee members for being with her at all times and for their moral support in difficult times.

The election was conducted in a very harmonious and family atmosphere. The names of the elected office bearers for the year 2008-2010 is as follows:

Nancy Menezes	President
Donald Mendonca	Vice President
Christopher Dias	Auditor
Romel D’Souza	Treasurer
Rainer Crasta	Asst. Treasurer
Roshan D’Souza	General Secretary
Sunitha Mendonca	Asst. General Secretary
Carol Martis	Public Relations/Media
Veena Lewis	Cultural Secretary
Nelson Mendonca	Asst. Cultural Secretary
Canute Roche	Coordinator-Poor Children’s Education
Navin Victor Mendonca	Asst. Coordinator-Poor Children’s Education
Sunil Arther Rodrigues	Incharge Members Affairs
Mohan Fernandes	Executive Committee Member
Micheal Oswald Dias	Executive Committee Member
Mathias Saldanha	Executive Committee Member
Wilson George Plavia	Executive Committee Member
Mergin Dias	Executive Committee Member
Henry Lewis	Executive Committee Member
Nelson Oliveira	Executive Committee Member

Though Nancy Menezes declined to continue as the president for the next term due to the unanimous vote she had no choice but to accept the responsibility as the President again. All members thanked her for the kind gesture. All the office bearers pledged their loyalty to the association and accepted their responsibilities to serve for KVWA and continue work as a team for the betterment of the community.

Some constitutional amendments were proposed. These were debated and were approved unanimously and were decided to be adopted. The KVWA General Body Meeting concluded at 11:45a.m. with vote of thanks by Roshan D’Souza.

Udupi: A team of seven students from the Chitrakala Mandir School of Art carved out a sand sculpture on the Malpe Beach here on Tuesday to make the people aware of their voting right.

They carved out a sand sculpture, where hands were seen reaching towards the dome of the Vidhana Soudha. It also has three monkeys — one keeping its eyes shut, another closing its ears and the third covering its mouth with its hands. People who visited the beach also went on to see the sculpture.

The leader of the team of students, Raghavendra Amin, said, “The theme of our sand sculpture is ‘Think and then vote’. We want the voters to realise the power of voting. At the same time, the three monkeys with their actions denote the need for clean politics.”

The other students in the team are Rajendra Hallihole, Dhanaraj Padubidri, Ramesh Hathihole, Sandeep, Mahesh and Namrat. The team began carving out the sculpture at 10 a.m. and finished it around 5.30 p.m. They were guided by their teacher and senior artist K.L. Bhat.