The suspense is out and finally, former chief minister Siddaramaiah’s name has been finalised for his home constituency Varuna for the upcoming Assembly election.
Siddaramaiah is also expected to contest from a second segment, which will be announced shortly. Besides, there is talk about Siddaramaiah’s son Dr Yathindra contesting from Kolar, earlier shortlisted for Siddaramaiah. Varuna comprises villages of Mysuru, Nanjangud and T Narsipur taluks, including his native Siddaramana Hundi.
Also Read | After much back and forth, Siddaramaiah chooses Varuna for his electoral battle in Karnataka polls
The Congress has announced its candidates to 16 of the 29 segments in the districts of Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan districts in the Old Mysuru region. The list covers all six segments represented by the Congress in the region. They are: Hunsur – H P Manjunath, H D Kote -C Anil Kumar, Narasimharaja – Tanveer Sait, Varuna – Dr Yathindra Siddaramaiah, Hanur – R Narendra and Chamarajanagar – C Puttaranga Shetty. Except for Varuna, presently represented by Siddaramaiah’s son, the tickets have been issued to sitting MLAs.
Other candidates
The other candidates of the Congress, in the region, are: Malavalli – P M Narendra Swamy, Srirangapatna – A B Ramesh Bandisiddegowda, Nagamangala – N Chaluvaraswamy, Holenarsipur – Shreyas M Patel, Sakleshpur – Murali Mohan, Periyapatna – K Venkatesh, K R Nagar - D Ravishankar, Nanjangud – Darshan Dhruvanarayan, Narasimharaja – Tanveer Sait, T Narsipur – H C Mahadevappa and Gundlupet – H M Ganesh Prasad.
New faces
While most of the candidates were the Congress nominees in the 2018 Assembly poll, the contestants are entirely new faces in Holenarsipur and Sakleshpur of Hassan district.
In Nanjangud, Darshan, son of the late MP R Dhruvanarayana, has been issued a ticket. Even though former minister Mahadevappa’s son Sunil Bose had an eye on Nanjangud, Dhruvanarayana was also keen on a contest. However, Dhruvanarayana died of a brief illness on March 11. In the 2018 poll, Dhruvanarayana’s cousin K Kalale Keshavamurthy was the Congress candidate.
He had won in the 2017 bypoll, facilitated by the resignation of Chamarajanagar MP V Srinivas Prasad.
In Gundlupet, the late minister H S Mahadev Prasad’s son Ganesh Prasad has been given an opportunity. In the 2018 poll, his mother M C Mohana Kumari (Geetha Mahadev Prasad) was the Congress candidate. She had won the 2017 bypoll, facilitated by the death of Mahadev Prasad.
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