'Primary best way to select candidate for B'lore Central'

Youth Congress chief urges party to conduct internal polling

With some senior Muslim leaders supporting the candidature of former Union minister C K Jaffer Sharief for Bangalore Central constituency, another aspirant, Youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad, has urged the party high command to conduct internal polling to select the candidate for that seat.

“The primaries are the best way to select a candidate. It’s a transparent way of choosing candidates,” Arshad said. “I hope my request is considered.”

At a recent meeting, a group of senior Muslim leaders had decided to urge the high command to field Sharief from Bangalore Central.

The veteran leaders’ supporters fear that the party may deny him the ticket, citing his old age.

Parameter

The Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi, had declared recently that party leaders aged 80 years and above should not contest elections. Sharief was born in 1933. H T Sangliana and J Alexander are other ticket aspirants for Bangalore Central constituency.

Meanwhile, the returning officers for conducting primaries in Bangalore North and Dakshina Kannada constituencies are likely to arrive on Friday or Saturday.
The party has, however, not finalised the dates for conducting the process, according to sources. AICC Secretary Prakash Joshi and Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad are in charge of holding the internal polling in Karnataka.

In Dakshina Kannada

It is said the team will first hold the internal poll for Dakshina Kannada where B Janardhana Poojary and Harsha Moily, the son of Union minister M Veerappa Moily, are the contenders.

Later, the poll will be conducted for Bangalore North where B L Shankar, G C Chandrashekar, K C Ramamurthy and Ramesh G Gowda are the aspirants. In both the constituencies, 700-800 voters will exercise their franchise through a secret ballot.

When contacted, Harsha Moily said he would file nomination for the internal polling seeking the ticket from Dakshina Kannada. But he said he did not know when the polling would be held.