BENGALURU: The Congress on Tuesday night finalised its candidates for the Dharwad and Davanagere constituencies for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Vinay Kulkarni, who was at the forefront of the movement seeking separate religious identity for Lingayats, has been chosen to contest from Dharwad against BJP’s sitting MP Pralhad Joshi.
Despite Kulkarni losing the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress has selected him over another aspirant and district Congress chief Shakir Sanadi. Despite heavy pressure on the party to field a minority, the Congress has fielded Kulkarni, a Lingayat, in the hopes of consolidating the minority and OBC votes along with splitting the dominant Lingayat votebank.
In the backdrop of Shamanur Shivashankarappa, Congress’ first choice in Davanagere, rejecting the ticket, the party has chosen HB Manjappa, the district Congress president. Shamanur had hoped his son SS Mallikarjun would get the ticket to contest instead of him, but the party has chosen to field an office- bearer with considerable weight among the Lingayat community in Davanagere to take on the incumbent MP and Shamanur’s son-in-law GM Siddeshwara of the BJP.