Independent candidate's papers found to be in order

Elections to the Legislative Council have taken an interesting turn with independent candidate Anil Kumar’s nomination papers being found to be in order.

As of now, there are nine aspirants for seven seats. The polls will have to be held even if either the JD(S) or the BJP withdraws their second candidate and Anil Kumar decides to remain in the fray. The scrutiny of the nomination papers for the June 10 elections was taken up on Wednesday. The nomination papers of the official candidates of the three major political parties were also found to be in order, including those of Veena Achaiah, R B Thimmapur, Allum Veerabhadrappa, Rizwan Arshad (all Congress); V Somanna, Lehar Singh (both BJP); and K V Narayanaswamy and S M Venkatpathi of the JD(S).

Interestingly, Kumar’s nomination papers were found to be in order and he had also provided the signature of 10 independent MLAs as proposers, which is mandatory. The nomination papers of two other Independent candidates, K A Mohan and Viratayya Hiremath, were rejected due to lack of proposers.

Kumar, a resident of Bengaluru who runs retail liquor shops, said he was a follower of former minister M P Prakash and had joined the Congress 10 years back. “I wanted to contest the Council polls and I resigned from the party and contested as an independent,” he said.

Kumar said he had no intention of withdrawing his nominations. June 3 is the last date for the withdrawal of the papers.

Rajya Sabha

Scrutiny of the nomination papers for the June 11 Rajya Sabha polls was also taken up on Wednesday. The nomination papers of Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (BJP), Oscar Fernandes, Jairam Ramesh, K C Ramamurthy (all Congress) and B M Farook (JD-S) were found in order, while that of independent candidate K A Mohan was rejected.