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Mangaluru: The by-election to the legislative council from the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi local authorities' constituency will be a contest among four candidates. An independent candidate, Muhammed Riyaz, has withdrawn his nomination on Monday, the last day for withdrawal.

Deputy commissioner Mullai Muhilan MP stated that candidates Kishore BR (BJP), Raju Poojary (Congress), Anwar Sadat S (SDPI), and Dinakar Ullal (independent) will be in the fray. 

Polling will be held at 392 booths in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts between 8am and 4pm on Oct 21.

A total of 6,032 voters from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi are eligible to vote. While there will be 234 polling booths in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi will have 158 stations. Gram panchayat members, corporators of the Mangaluru City Corporation, members of city municipal councils, town municipal councils, town panchayats, MLAs, MLCs, and Lok Sabha members are eligible to vote.

Election observer of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Pankaj Kumar Pandey, reviewed the poll preparations at the deputy commissioner's office on Monday. He issued directions to officials regarding arrangements to be made during the election and counting of votes.

The deputy commissioner stated that out of 6,032 voters, 3,127 are women and 2,905 are men. He said the counting of votes will be held at St Aloysius PU College in the city on Oct 24.

Udupi deputy commissioner Vidya Kumari K, city police commissioner Anupam Agrawal, Dakshina Kannada ZP CEO Anandh K, Dakshina Kannada SP Yathish N, Udupi SP Arun K, and additional deputy commissioners Santhosh Kumar G and Mamatha Devi were present.

Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao reminded that V D Savarkar was not against cow slaughter as he himself was non-veg eater, PTI reported on Thursday.

"As a Brahmin he was eating meat, and he was openly propagating eating meat," said the minister at an event in Bengaluru.

Reacting to Gundu Rao's claim, BJP MP Anurag Thakur called Congress a "factory of lies" as he warned that India won't tolerate any disrespect towards Savarkar.

"By disrespecting Veer Savarkar they have shown that they don't respect freedom fighters. During the Congress government, Sardar Bhagat Singh was termed a separatist in textbooks...By making those who want to break the nation join the congress party, Rahul Gandhi is taking forward the ideology of 'tukde tukde' and he is a 'modern Jinnah' who speaks ill of the country abroad...," he said.

Meanwhile, a court in Maharashtra's Nashik district summoned Congress MP Rahul Gandhi earlier this week in a defamation case filed against him for his alleged objectionable remarks against the Hindutva ideologue.

The complainant, who is the director of an NGO, claimed he watched a press conference addressed by Gandhi in Hingoli and also a speech made by the Congress leader in November 2022.

He alleged that Gandhi, on the two occasions, by his words and visual representations knowingly harmed the reputation of Veer Savarkar and also tried to defame the latter's image in the society.

According to the complainant, Gandhi said "Savarkar is BJP and RSS jin" which was defamatory in nature.