With just over a month to go for the Lok Sabha Elections in Karnataka, neither the Congress, JD(S) nor the BJP have announced the final list of candidates for the 28 seats in the state.
On Sunday afternoon, BJP state President BS Yeddyurappa presided over a meeting held at the party office in Bengaluru’s Malleshwaram. BJP General Secretary and state unit in-charge P Muralidhar Rao, BJP Organising Secretary in-charge of south India BL Santosh, along with BJP leaders DV Sadananda Gowda, Jagadish Shettar, R Ashoka, Arvind Limbavali CT Ravi, Prahallad Joshi and Dakshina Kannada MP Nalinkumar Kateel came up with a final list of recommendations. The list has been sent to the high command in Delhi and is pending approval.
BJP sources say that the high command has guaranteed tickets to incumbent MPs and will announce its final list of candidates by Tuesday night. The party has also not made any recommendations for the Mandya segment as the state leaders are awaiting former Congress MP Ambareesh’s wife Sumalatha’s announcement on whether she will contest as a BJP candidate. “If she decides to join the BJP, then she will get the ticket. We are also yet to decide whether we will support her if she contests as an independent or if it would be a friendly fight,” the source added.
Here is the final list of candidates:
Chikkodi – Ramesh Katti
Belagavi – Suresh Anand
Bagalkot – PC Gaddigoudar
Vijayapura – Ramesh Jigajigani
Kalaburgi – Umesh Jadav
Raichur – Anantaraju Nayak / Amaresh Nayak / Mahadevamma
Bidar – Bhagawant Khuba
Koppal – Karadi Sanganna
Ballari – Devendrappa (Ramesh Jarkiholi’s father-in-law) / J Shantha
Haveri – Shivakumar Udasi
Dharwad – Prahallad Joshi
Uttara Kannada – Anantkumar Hegde
Davangere – GN Siddeshwar
Shivamogga – BY Raghavendra
Udupi-Chikkamagaluru – Shobha Karandlaje
Hassan – A Manju
Dakshina Kannada – Nalin Kumar Kateel
Chitradurga – Janardhan Swamy / Manappa Vajjal
Tumakuru – GS Basavaraju
Mysuru-Kodagu – Pratap Simha
Chamarajanagar – V Srinivas Prasad
Bengaluru Rural – CP Yogeshwar / Rudresh
Bengaluru North – Sadananda Gowda
Bengaluru Central PC Mohan
Bengaluru South – Tejaswini Ananth Kumar
Chikkaballapura – BN Bacche Gowda
Kolar – DS Veeraiah / Chalavadi Narayanaswamy
Mandya – nil