Only six Cong MLCs may contest

 
Going by the probable candidates’ list, of the 19 sitting Congress MLCs, only six have been lucky enough to get ‘B’ forms to contest the elections this time. Thus, implying that 13 sitting MLCs have not been able to secure tickets.

V S Ugrappa, Congress MLC and Leader of the Opposition is not in the fray. He said that he wanted to contest from Tumkur constituency but the high command decided otherwise.  But sources in the party informed the media that he himself did not want to contest the polls. The JD(S) has considerable influence in Tumkur district.

Names of senior Congress leaders R V Deshpande, H K Patil and Kagodu Thimmappa were making rounds as candidates. But they are not in the fray.  The sitting Congress MLCs who are likely to be in the fray are - S Ravi (Bangalore rural); Manjunath (Mysore); Veerkumar Patil (Belgaum); Nazeer Ahmed (Kolar); S R Patil (Bagalkot) and Pratapchandra Shetty (Mangalore). Here are the lists of probable candidates of three major political parties:

Congress

Dayananda Reddy (Bangalore urban); Allamprabhu Patil (Gulbarga); Srikanth Ghotnekar (Uttara Kannada); Mahima Patil (Shimoga); Basavaraj Itagi (Raichur); T John (Kodagu); Venkatrao Ghorpade (Bellary); Mehabub Pasha (Chitradurga) and Srinivas Mane (Dharwad).

JD(S) 

Patel Shivaram (Hassan); Ramakrishna (Mandya); Sandesh Nagaraj/Sunita Veerappa Gowda (Mysore); Dr Huli Naikar (Tumkur); Bhage Gowda/E Krishnappa (Bangalore Rural); P C Siddanagoudar/N K Konareddy (Dharwad) and Belgaum - yet to be decided.

BJP

Mahantesh Kavatagimath /Shashikanth Naik (Belgaum); G S Nyamgoud (Bijapur); Basavaraj Patil Humnabad/Prakash Khandre (Bidar); Subhashgoud Biradar (Gulbarga); Halappa Achar (Raichur); Shivaraj Sajjanar (Dharwad); Kota Srinivas Poojary (Dakshina Kannada); K R Sidramanna (Shimoga); S G Medappa (Kodagu); D C Thammanna (Mandya); Mrithyunjaya Jinaga (Bellary); Gopal Gowda (Bangalore Rural); Gopinath Reddy (Bangalore urban); Bhoje Gowda (Chikmagalur) and K R Mallikharjunappa (Mysore).