Congress, BJP to pick Karnataka bypoll nominees in 2-3 days

Bengaluru: The Congress and BJP will lock horns on April 9 in the byelections to the Davangere South and Bagalkot Assembly seats, both currently held by the Congress.

The bypolls have been necessitated by the deaths of Congress veterans H Y Meti (Bagalkot) on November 4, 2025, and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (Davangere South) on December 14, 2025. 

With March 23 the last day to file nominations, both parties are expected to finalise their candidates in two to three days. The results will be announced on May 4.

The fight is expected to be bipolar, as JD(S) has negligible presence in both constituencies.

The Congress is likely to field candidates from the families of the deceased members, even though there are other contenders. 

While Meti’s sons Mallikarjun or Umesh is likely to get the ticket in Bagalkot, Shivashankarappa’s grandson and Mining Minister S S Mallikarjun’s son Samarth is being dubbed as the favourite to be the contestant in Davanagere South. 

Abdul Jabbar is said to be the other probable candidate from Congress in Davangere South. Muslims form the largest bloc (over 70,000 voters) in an electorate of around 2.1 lakh, while there are around 35,000 Lingayats (Shivashankarappa was a senior Lingayat leader and All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha president at the time of his demise).  

In BJP camp, two probable candidates have emerged for the Bagalkot bypoll. Veeranna Charanthimath and Pralhad Pujari — both former MLAs from the constituency — are vying for the ticket. 

According to BJP sources, Charanthimath is likely to bag the ticket. In the 2023 polls, Charanthimath had offered a tight fight to Meti, losing by 5,878 votes.

Comparatively, there are more candidates in the BJP in Davangere South. The party is learnt to have trimmed the initial list of 10-12 probables to four — B G Ajay Kumar, Srinivas Das Kariappa, Raghunandan Ambarkar and Yashwanthrao Jadhav. Ajay Kumar was the runner-up in 2023, losing to Shivashankarappa by 27,888 votes.

According to BJP sources, the saffron party is expected to finalise its list by Tuesday. 

Bypolls traditionally tend to favour the ruling party, and the sympathy wave in favour of the veteran Congressmen is also likely to help Congress.

In fact, the Congress has won all four bypolls in the state after coming to power in 2023 (Shorapur, Channapatna, Sandur and Shiggaon), two of which — Channapatna and Shiggaon — were held by the Opposition NDA.

However, the BJP is expected to try its best to reverse the trend, especially in Bagalkot, which has witnessed several tight clashes between the two national parties over the years.