Most former BJP corporators miss the bus

Several former corporators have been denied tickets by the BJP to contest the BBMP elections.

The BJP announced a list of candidates for 96 of the total 198 wards on Tuesday night. Of these 96 wards, the party’s candidates had won from 55 wards in the elections held five years ago. However, of the 55, only 12 former corporators have managed to get the party’s nod to seek re-election. Nine former corporators have managed to get tickets for their wives. The party is fielding former Vijayanagar corporator H Ravindra’s daughter R Mahalakshmi from Hosahalli ward.

The lucky ones who have been fielded again from the wards they represented earlier are: Manjuladevi Srinivas (Devasandra ward), Harish (Nagapura), Manjunath Raju (Kadu Malleswara), Jayaprakash Reddy (Hebbal), Kodanda Reddy (Banasawadi), Sumithra Vijayakumar (New Thippasandra), Goutham Kumar (Someshwarapura), Rekha Kadiresh (Chalavadipalya), A H Basavaraj (Banashankari), N Nagaraju (Bhyrasandra) and Shashirekha Jayaram (Konanakunte).

The party has fielded Padmanabha Reddy from Kacharakanahalli ward from where he had won the previous elections on a JD(S) ticket. He had switched his loyalty to the BJP to contest the Assembly elections in 2013. The BJP has given ticket to Poornima Srinivas, daughter of former JD(S) State president the late A Krishnappa, to contest from KR Puram ward. She was a Congress corporator in the previous BBMP council from Basavanapura ward.

The BJP has fielded wives of nine former corporators namely Leela Shivakumar from Chickpet ward, Madhu Kumari Vageesh from Marenahalli ward, Kamala Ganesh from Chamarajpet ward, Prathibha Dhanaraj from Dharmaraya Temple ward, Poornima Ramesh from Yediyur ward, Nagarathna Ramamurthy from Pattabhiramanagar, K N Lakshmi Nataraj from JP Nagar ward, Malathi Somashekar from Shakambarinagar ward and R Prathibha Ramesh from Puttenahalli ward.

Lakshmi Nataraj is the wife of former mayor S K Nataraj whereas Nagarathna Ramamurthy and Malathi Somashekar are the wives of C K Ramamurthy and B Somashekar respectively. Ramamurthy and Somashekar were instrumental in the holding of the BBMP elections, as they knocked on the doors of the High Court when the State government showed its reluctance and wanted the polls to be postponed for an indefinite period.

Ex-corporators swap wards

There is a case of swapping of wards between two former corporators - Umesh Shetty and Mohan Kumar. While Shetty will be contesting from Govindarajanagar, Kumar will try his luck from Nagarabhavi. In the previous BBMP council, Shetty represented Nagarabhavi, while Kumar was the corporator from Govindarajanagar.