BSR Congress president B Sriramulu here on Tuesday released the first list of 124 candidates — 110 of them contesting an election for the first time — for the May 5 Assembly election.
Sriramulu told reporters that the party had provided 20 tickets to Lingayats, 13 to Okkaligas, nine to Kurubas, 8 to Muslims, 30 to Scheduled Castes, 16 seats to Scheduled Tribes and the remaining seats to other communities.
Actor Pooja Gandhi has been given ticket for Raichur City constituency, Rakshita Prem for Chamarajanagar and Mayur Patel for Mahadevapura.
Stating that nine former MLAs and five former ministers were given tickets, Sriramulu said he would contest again from Bellary Rural constituency, while Suresh Babu would contest from Kampli.
MPs J Shanta and Sanna Fakirappa and former deputy commissioner of Bellary Shivappa would not contest the election, he added.
The party fielded minister Anand Singh’s sister Ranu Samyukta from Hospet, Bhima Naik from HB Halli, retired KAS officer Hemanth Bharati from Hadagali and Chennabasappa from Sandur, he said.
The candidates for the remaining three constituencies in Bellary would be decided on Wednesday.
The party had plans to give MLA Somashekar Reddy an important role to look after party affairs in the state, he said.
Sriramulu said his party was informed of being given ceiling fan as the symbol by the Election Commission of India on Monday.
He would come out with the list of candidates for the remaining constituencies in two to three days.