Two retired judges are drawing the attention of poll observers this time as they are trying their luck in electoral politics.
Former Odisha High Court chief justice N Y Hanumanthappa and justice (retd) Chandrashekharaiah are among the 435 candidates fighting the April 17 Lok Sabha elections.
Justice Hanumanthappa is contesting as a Congress candidate from Bellary (ST) constituency while Chandrashekharaiah is fighting from Mysore-Kodagu Lok Sabha seat on a JD(S) ticket.
The state has a history of electing candidates drawn from the judicial fraternity. Former SC judge K S Hegde won the Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat in 1977 general elections.
He had contested the election on a Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) ticket, which was renamed as the Janata Party later. The election, which was held after the emergency, saw justice (retired) Hegde win the polls by a margin of 42,000 votes.
He trounced veteran Congress leader and former chief minister Kengal Hanumanthaiya, the architect of the Vidhana Soudha.
His victory was significant because he was one of the two non-Congress candidates who made it to the Lok Sabha preventing the Congress from sweeping the poll. Congress had bagged a record number of 26 seats of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state in the 1977 general elections.The other seat was bagged by BLD candidate H S Nanje Gowda who contested from Hassan. Justice (retd) N Y Hanumanthappa had narrowly missed in his maiden attempt to enter the Lok Sabha, when he lost to BJP’s J Shantha in the 2009 elections by a margin of just over 2,000 votes.Justice (retd) Hanumanthappa, who lost the legal battle in an election petition, expressed apprehension that the result was rigged.
The High Court had ordered a recounting of the votes in which the former judge’s charges were proved untrue.While justice (retd) N Y Hanumnthappa is facing a direct fight with BJP candidate B Sriramulu in Bellary, Chandrashekharaiah is facing a stiff triangular contest from sitting Congress member H Vishwanath and BJP’s Pratap Simha.