madikeri speaker k g bopaiah may have chosen a voice vote to save his government from a noconfidence motion but it seems like he himself faces a serious threat from the hand symbol while bopaiah is banking on development work taken up by him to score a hatrick his main opponent and congress candidate b t pradeep a greenhorn kodava is leaving no stone unturned to give the speaker a challenge i am confident that the people will recognize my efforts to develop the area and have faith in my capabilities people have shown their enthusiasm during the recent public meetings said bopaiah visits by senior bjp leader sushma swaraj has added a zing to the bjp campaign and given a substantial boost to the districts bjp workers meanwhile pradeep said bopaiah has misused government machineries not to develop kodagu but to push his own agenda people are no fools they want to see a change this time he added while the two high profile leaders are leaving no stones unturned jds candidate is treading carefully without much hue and cry but what is significant this time is the caste and green factor seem to be playing a significant role in the elections much to chagrin of bopaiah kodavas a major and influential community are rallying behind the kodava candidate pradeep while the arebashe gowdas are backing bopaiah who are just 10 of the electorate moreover the green activists in the district have unleashed an antibopaiah campaign during the last five years he had made our lives misreable when we had opposed resort culture and favoured unesco tag for western ghats said green activist manu muthappa but bopaiah supporters are confident that their leader will sail through merely by the development works he had undertaken in his tenure he managed to bring development works worth rs 900 crore to kodagu a record in the last two decades claimed one of his ardent supporters in the party but in this big fight it looks the majority scst will have a big role to play pradeep has some reason to fret as roy david director of cord coorg organisation for rural development is contesting as an independent candidate cord functions as the secretariat of national adivasi alliance network and roy david is popular among the adivasis the constituency has over 20000 tribals and if all of them vote for david it will adversely affect the congress prospects admitted a senior congress leader but not surprisngly the muslim voters are rallying behind the congress candidate and they are going to be decisive in madikeri assembly constituency represented byt sports minister appacchu ranjan its a straight fight between ranjan and another veteran b a jeevijaya of the jds who is contesting for the record ninth time jeevijaya emerged a giant killer by defeating the then chief minister r gundu rao of the congress in 1983 political observers said the lingayats votes will virtually decide ranjans fate last time they