Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda will seek re-election from Hassan in the Lok Sabha polls as the party today came out with the first list of 12 candidates for the April 17 elections.

Geetha Shivaraj Kumar, daughter of former Chief Minister late S. Bangarappa and wife of Kannada film actor Shivarajkumar, also figures in the list approved by the party's parliamentary board.

Geetha is being pitted from her home district of Shimoga where BJP's former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will be seeking to make his debut in parliament.

JD(S) fulfilled the request of party’s youth wing President Madhu Bangarappa, son of Bangarappa, to field one of his family members to contest from Shimoga represented by his father four times.

By fielding Geetha from Shimoga, JD(S) is pinning hopes of winning the Shimoga seat after it received a positive response in the assembly elections in which it won Shimoga Rural, Bhadravati and Sorab assembly constituencies in the district.
Bandeppa Khashempur will contest from Bidar and attempt to retain seat.

The other candidates are Raja Amaresh Naik (Raichur), Shivanna (Chamarajanagar), Sreemanth Patil or Uttam Patil (Chikkodi),Goolihatti Shekhar(Chitradurga), Prabhakar Reddy (Bangalore Rural), Shivananda Naik (Uttara Kannada), A Krishnappa (Tumkur), K Keshava (Kolar) and Ravi Menasinakaai (Haveri).

In the last Lok Sabha polls, the then ruling BJP had bagged 19 of the 28 seats, Congress six and JD(S) three.