MLC polls for 25 seats to be held on December 10

Biennial elections to fill 25 vacancies in the Karnataka Legislative Council will be held on December 10, announced the Election Commission on Tuesday.

These 25 MLCs will be elected from 20 local authorities' constituencies and the poll outcome will have a bearing on the power equation in the 75-member Upper House. The term of these incumbent MLCs — 14 Congress, seven BJP and four JD(S) — will end on January 5 next year.

Notification for the biennial election will be issued on November 16 and the candidates will be allowed to file nominations till November 23. The nominations will be scrutinised on November 24 and November 26 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations, the EC said. The poll results will be out on December 14.

Voters from these polls include Lok Sabha MPs, MLAs and members of urban local bodies as well as zilla, taluk and gram panchayats.

This time, however, there are no zilla and taluk panchayat members as elections to these local bodies have not been held. As many as 3,903 taluk panchayat and 1,083 zilla panchayat members will be left out. However, most of the voters (93,590) will be the gram panchayat members.

Councillors of the BBMP, too, will not vote as there aren't any.

These polls are crucial for all three parties to retain their strength in the Council, where the BJP has the upper hand with 32 members followed by Congress with 29, JD(S) 12, one Independent and one chairperson.

BJP's floor leader and Social Welfare Minister Kota Srinivas Poojary, Leader of the Opposition SR Patil (Congress) and Council Deputy Chairperson M K Pranesh will seek re-election as their term is coming to an end. Government chief whip Mahantesh Kavatagimath and his counterpart in the Opposition M Narayanaswamy will face a litmus test in the polls.

The BJP core committee, which met late Tuesday evening, discussed strategy for the MLC polls.

“In three days, we will finalise the list of candidates and send it to our parliamentary board,” Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said. “There are 2-3 names for each seat. We have received reports from the districts and some more discussion is to be done. We also discussed MLCs from other parties joining the BJP, but no decision was taken.”

Karnataka Congress working president Saleem Ahmed said the party had received over 150 applications for the 25 seats.

Of the four JD(S) MLCs who will complete their term, it is said that Sandesh Nagaraj and CR Manohar might join the BJP. Nagaraj had earlier indicated his wish to switch parties.

The EC has asked Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar to depute a senior officer to ensure Covid-19 protocols are followed during the election.

The EC also announced that the polling for biennial elections to fill 11 vacancies in the Legislative Council of Andhra Pradesh, 12 vacancies in Telangana and six in Maharashtra will be held on December 10.

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