After hustle of campaigning netas take some time off

HUBBALLI: After hectic campaigning,

Dharwad

BJP candidate

Pralhad Joshi

and Congress candidate

Vinay Kulkarni

could finally afford to relax on Wednesday.

In the morning, Joshi did yoga for an hour under the guidance of yoga guru Vinayak Talakeri. Before that, he also attended many phone calls and interacted with media persons. Later, he had breakfast and tea with his family members.

“I had to skip yoga for almost a month due to hectic election works. As I had taken a break, I requested the yoga teacher to come to my house and teach me,” he said.

“After a month, I had breakfast with my family today and interacted with them. I also spent quality time with my elder daughter who recently joined a software company in Bengaluru. She came to Hubballi for the election,” he added.

Till 2pm, Joshi held discussions with his party workers who came to his residence to give feedback about the election. “I never get such a huge response and feedback. This feedback shows that I will win with a thumping majority for the fourth time,” said Joshi

No plans for a vacation

When asked if he plans to go on a vacation with his family, Joshi said, “I won’t be able to spend more time with my family again due to the forthcoming by-election in Kundgol. I am attending the core committee to be held in Bengaluru tomorrow and will be back in the city on Friday.”

“There was no any such extra pressure in this election. The stress was quite common and no election will be stress-free. By using the caste card in this election, the Congress candidate helped BJP get more votes. In the last election too, the caste card was used but it didn’t help Congress and I will win with a huge margin,” Joshi said.

Later in the day Joshi attended weddings and also met party leaders before taking a flight to Bengaluru.

Kulkarni spends time with pets, cattle in dairy

Congress Dharwad candidate Vinay Kulkarni who had just 22 days for campaigning as his name was finalized at the last moment, decided to stay back in Dharwad and attend to works related to the Kundgol by-election scheduled to be held on May 19.

As the polling ended on Tuesday evening, Kulkarni met his supporters at his residence and discussed the day’s polling progress.

Getting up early in the morning, he set out to his dairy near Attikolla and spent time with animals he has reared. Known to be attached to the dairy and its inmates, Vinay would visit the place almost every day when in town. He could not do that during campaigning.

On Wednesday, he went round the dairy, caressed his pet dogs and the cattle. He has reared a rare horse of ‘Labella’ breed. This is the shortest horse in the world. Vinay rode the horse for a short while. He later enquired with dairy staff about the wellbeing of the animals.

Vinay’s dairy has 1,500 Jersy cows, 300 Murrah buffalos, 3,000 goats and 15 horses besides dogs.

“I am basically a dairy farmer and politics comes next. Elections come and go. I enjoy being in the dairy and taking care of the animals with whom I have an emotional bond. After some relaxation, I will attend to the Kundgol by-election,” Kulkarni said.