Poll battle hotting up in State

Karnataka is witnessing a political churning as the Lok Sabha elections draw near.

On Wednesday, former member of Parliament H T Sangliana hinted that he would quit the Congress and join the Janata Dal (Secular), while cine actor Rakshita decided to quit the JD(S) and join the Bharatiya Janata Party. Karnataka Janata Party leader and MLC M D Lakshminarayana joined the Congress in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and KPCC president G Parameshwara.

Miffed with the party for not fielding any Christian in the State, Congress leader and former police officer H T Sangliana is planning to quit the Congress and join the JD(S), which is keen on fielding him from the Bangalore Central parliamentary constituency.
“The party (the Congress) has not given ticket to Christians anywhere in the State, though they constitute about 3.5 per cent of the population. Brahmins form only about one per cent of the State’s population and still the community has got two tickets (Nandan Nilekani in Bangalore South and Prashant Deshpande in Uttara Kannada).

I will wait till March 24. If the party fails to take any step to give representation to Christians, I will take an appropriate decision,” Sangliana told Deccan Herald.
Sangliana was one of the Congress ticket aspirants from Bangalore Central.
C K Jaffer Sharief has already rebelled against the Congress and is cosying up to with the JD(S). The Bangalore Central constituency, as a result, has become a big headache for the Grand Old Party, which has already fielded Youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad for the seat.

It is learnt JD(S) leaders H D Deve Gowda, H D Kumaraswamy and B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan have spoken to Sangliana. The JD(S) is keen on fielding him from Bangalore Central, while it is insisting that Sharief contest from Mysore.
Denied a ticket by the JD(S) to contest from Mandya, actor Rakshita has decided to join the BJP.

Within hours of JD(S) leader Cheluvarayaswamy declaring the candidature of C S Puttaraju for Mandya, Rakshita is said to have expressed her interest to join the BJP.
During the Assembly polls in 2013, Rakshita had quit the BSR Congress and joined the JD(S). Then, she had wanted to contest from Rajarajeshwarinagar constituency, but the party asked her to contest from Chamarajnagar.

Rakshita will be joining the BJP at the party office on Thursday in the presence of senior leaders H N Ananth Kumar and R Ashoka.

Speaking after joining the Congress, Lakshminarayana alleged that former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa had let down about 3,000 KJP workers by rejoining the BJP.
Despite repeated requests, Yeddyurappa did not take any measure to protect the workers. All these workers will join the Congress soon, Lakshminarayana said.