The Congress will field its candidates in 17 seats. As far as the two remaining seats - Bangalore rural and Chitradurga - are concerned, both parties have decided to remain rivals. Meanwhile, the BJP has released the names of 23 candidates for the Council polls.
Despite negotiations, leaders of the JD(S) and Congress have failed to come to any conclusion on Bangalore rural and Chitradurga. KPCC Working President D K Shivakumar wanted the Bangalore rural seat for the party so that his relative and sitting MLC S Ravi can seek re-election. The JD-S’ argument was that it has a strong base in both places.
Party State President H D Kumaraswamy represents Bangalore rural as an MP. Both parties, therefore, refused to budge an inch. As a result, both have decided to field their candidates in these places. The JD(S) has decided to field E Krishnappa from Bangalore rural and B T Siddesh from Chitradurga. However, both parties choose to call it “friendly contest.”
The names of 23 BJP candidates were cleared by the Central Election Committee in three batches through the day. The party will not be contesting for its second seat in Dakshina Kannada. The candidate for Kolar will be cleared on Tuesday morning. According to sources, the party has invited former minister Srinivasa Gowda to the party fold and contest the Kolar seat. In effect, the party will be contesting only 24 of the 25 seats. In Bidar, the party has given ticket to former minister Basavaraj Patil Humnabad, who quit the Congress to join the BJP on Monday.
Meanwhile, all three parties have already started issuing ‘B’ forms to their candidates.Tuesday is the last date for filing nomination papers.
The names of BJP candidates which have been cleared is as follow: Gulbarga - Shubhashchandra Biradar; Bijapur (two seats) - G S Nyamagowda and Chandrashekar Koutagi; Belgaum (two seats) - Mahantesh Kavatagimath and Vasanth Dalwai, Dharwad (two seats) Shivaraj Sajjanar and M R Patil; Uttara Kannada - Vinod Madhav Prabhu; Raichur - Halappa Basavappa Achar; Chitradurga - Thippareddy; Shimoga - R K Siddaramanna; Dakshina Kannada - Kota Srinivasa Poojary; Chikmagalur - M S Bojegowda; Bangalore - H S Gopinath Reddy; Bangalore rural - Gopala Gowda; Kodagu - S G Medappa; Mysore (two seats) - K R Mallikarjunappa and C Ramesh; Bidar - Basavaraj Patil Humnabad; Hassan - H C Narayana; Mandya - G B Shivakumar; Bellary - Mruthyunjaya Jinagi, Tumkur - Gopal Krishna.
JD-S’ tentative list: Hassan - Patel Shivaram; Mandya - Ramakrishna; Mysore - Sandesh Nagaraj; Tumkur - M R Hulinayakar; Dharwad - B M Sali; Belgaum -- not decided, Blore rural - E Krishnappa; Chitradurga - B T Siddesh.
Congress’ tentative list: Mysore - N Manjunath; Gulbarga - Allammaprabhu Patel; Uttar Kannada - Srikanth Photnekar; Dakshina Kannada - Pratapachandra Shetty; , Belgaum - Veerakumara Patil; Shimoga - Mahima Patel; Blore rural - S Ravi; Bangalore - Dayananda Reddy; Bijapur - S R Patil; Raichur - Basavaraj Itagi; Kodagu - T John; Bellary - Venkatrao Ghorpade; Chitradurga - Ahmed Pasha; Dharwad - Srinivasa Mane, Chikmagalur - Gayatri Shantegowda,; Kolar -- Nazeer Ahmed, Bidar -- Chandrashekar Patil.
The party is yet to announce its candidates for another seats for Bijapur and DK.
