Three time MP and 'Rebel Star' facing daunting task

Srirangapatna, Karnataka, May 7 (UNI) Three time MP and 'Rebel Star' of Kannada silver screen M H Ambareesh (Congress) is facing an uphill task in his maiden attempt to enter the Karnataka Assembly from the temple town Srirangapatna going to poll in the first phase on May 10.

The actor-politician, who represented Mandya in the Lok Sabha for three terms, faces stiff competition in this sugarbelt of Mandya District as Farmers Association (Rajya Raitha Sangha), which was fed up with politicians not responding to their plight, floated Sarvodaya Karnataka Party (SKP) and selected one of its leader K S Nanjunde Gowda, who had unsuccessfully contested in the last four elections.

For Ambareesh, it will be an acid test as he is locked in a multi-cornered contest with eight candidates in the fray and peculiarity of the constituency of electing only woman candidates since 1989. Pooja M Santosh of BJP is the lone woman candidate in the fray.

Mr Gowda said, ''though I experienced misfortune in the elections contested so far, I had been with the people always trying to solve their problems.'' Ambareesh enjoys the love of his fans, while Gowda has the sympathy of the voters for suffering close defeats.

Stating that Ambareesh is an outsider and will not be accepted by the people as he has not done anything to help them even as an MP, Mr Gowda said, ''people will have to travel to Bangalore for getting their problems solved if Mr Ambareesh was elected.

''I hope the people will prefer a performer rather than a film actor.'' It will be a fight between 'glamour versus farming' in this constituency which has 1,81,517 electorates, including 90,649 women voters.

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