Shakunthala Shetty will not contest elections anymore

Puttur: Congress leader Shakunthala T Shetty has announced that she will not contest elections in the future. She lost the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections to her BJP opponent Sanjeeva Matandooru in Puttur constituency.

Shakunthala served as a Parliamentary secretary to former chief minister Siddaramaiah. She said that though she will not contest elections anymore, she will focus on building the party in Puttur. She won the 2004 elections on a BJP ticket and was re-elected on a Congress ticket in 2013. However, this time BJP candidate Matandooru defeated Shakunthala with a margin of 19,477 votes. Shakunthala bagged 70,596 votes while her opponent won with 90,073 votes.

Shakunthala claims that a BJP led malicious campaign against her led to her failure in the constituency.

“I got the opportunity to become an MLA twice and served honestly. This time, I lost because of many reasons. First of all, the Hindutva wave that the BJP created has affected my prospects. The Sangh Parivar, especially the RSS, has been working at the grassroots level to ensure the victory of the BJP in the name of Hindutva. A malicious campaign against the Congress and chief minister Siddaramaiah launched by the BJP has helped their candidate to win the election. They have been spreading lies that Siddaramaiah is anti-Hindu,” she alleged.

“I have suspicions about the functioning of EVMs. I would have accepted the defeat without any suspicion if the margin was between 5,000–10,000 votes. Such a huge margin of above 19,000 itself leads to suspicion. We have already filed a complaint with the Election Commission,” she said.

She says she has decided not to contest elections in the future. She will however continue to support party workers. “I will instill confidence in them (party workers) and work towards strengthening the party,” she added.