BENGALURU: After much delay, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday announced its first listof candidates from Karnataka for the Lok Sabha polls. Of the 28 seats, BJP announced candidates for 21.
Following prolonged deliberations, the party has decided to renominate 14 of its MPs from the same seat that they currently represent.
The party has left the suspense hanging on key seats of Mandya, Bangalore South, Kolar and Bangalore Rural that are scheduled to go to polls in Phase II of the elections on April 18. The party has also not announced candidates for Koppal, Chikkodi and Raichur that are scheduled to go to polls in phase III on April 23.
Congress turncoats A Manju and Umesh Jadhav, who recently joined the BJP, will contest from Hassan and Gulbarga against Prajwal Revanna and Mallikarjun Kharge respectively. Srinivas Prasad, a former minister in the Siddaramaiah ministry, will contest from Chamarajanagar.
BJP yet to announce B’lore South candidate
The sitting MPs include Union ministers D V Sadananda Gowda who will seek reelection from Bangalore North, Anant Kumar Hegde from Uttara Kannada, P C Mohan from Bangalore Central, State BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra from Shimoga, former state minister Shobha Karandlaje from Udupi-Chikmagalur and Nalin Kumar Kateel from Dakshina Kannada.
The others sitting MPs seeking reelection are Suresh Angadi, Parvatagouda C Gaddigoudar, Ramesh Jigajinagi , Bhagwanth Khuba, Shivakumar Udasi, Pralhad Joshi, G M Siddeshwara and Prathap Simha.
Out of the 15 sitting MPs, the party is yet to decide on sitting MP Sanganna Karadi from Koppal.
Despite having a confident candidate in Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, wife of late Union minister Ananth Kumar, the party has not named a candidate from Bangalore South. It is yet to announce candidates for Bangalore Rural and Kolar against Congress heavyweights D K Suresh and K H Muniyappa respectively.
The party has also refused to make its stance clear on Mandya Lok Sabha seat where Sumalatha Ambareesh is contesting as an independent candidate against Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s son and JD(S)-Congress joint candidate Nikhil Kumar. While state leaders are divided over fielding a candidate or backing Sumalatha Ambareesh in Mandya, the high command has decided to leave the decision hanging.