Elections to four Rajya Sabha seats and seven Legislative Council seats from the State Assembly are most likely to be unopposed as none of the parties fielded additional candidates.
Sitting Rajya Sabha member and AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad and AICC spokesperson M V Rajeev Gowda filed their nomination papers on Monday. Though the Congress will be left with 21 surplus votes after electing two candidates, it did not risk fielding the third candidate, lest the official candidates get defeated. A candidate requires a minimum of 45 votes to get elected. The MLAs are the voters in these elections.
Sitting MP Prabhakar Kore (BJP) and Kupendra Reddy have already filed their nominations. Reddy, a Bangalore-based realtor, crossed over to the JD(S) only to contest the elections.
With the BJP and JD(S) supporting Independent candidate D U Mallikarjun for a Council seat, the Congress did not field the fifth candidate in the elections. KPCC president G Parameshwara, H M Revanna, N S Bose Raju and Jayamma Balaraj filed their nominations for the Council elections on Monday. The JD(S) again fielded cash-rich T A Sharvana, owner of jewellery showroom Sai Gold Palace.
Former deputy chief minister K S Eshwarappa of the BJP and Mallikarjun have already filed their papers for the elections. Scrutiny of nominations is scheduled for Tuesday and June 12 is the last day for withdrawal of nominations.
If all nominations are found to be as per stipulated format, the selections will be unopposed.
Revanna is a former minister. Like Siddaramaiah, he also belongs to Kuruba community. He had aspired to contest the 2013 Assembly elections from Hebbal, but the party gave the ticket to Rehman Sharief, grandson of senior leader C K Jaffer Sharief. But Rehman lost the elections.
Bose Raju is a KPCC general secretary and two-time MLA. Parameshwara and Congress floor leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge are said to have pushed his candidature. He has been accommodated under ‘organisational quota’.
