BENGALURU: There is BJP national general secretary BL Santhosh’s stamp all over BJP’s ticket selection for the Legislative Council elections which was announced on Tuesday. The party has picked Hemalatha Nayak from ST, Chalavadi Narayanswamy from SC, S Keshav Prasad from the backward Kuruvina Shetty community and Laxman Savadi from the dominant Lingayat community, covering the core constituency of BJP. (It may be recalled when the BJP rebels held a meeting at Palace Grounds, against BS Yediyurappa, Keshav Prasad was one of the key organisers.)
As the names were announced at the last minute on Tuesday, the candidates collected their B-forms from their respective party presidents and submitted their nomination papers at Vidhana Soudha before the deadline of 3 pm.
JDS’ selection of T Sharavana for the lone MLC seat is no surprise as his name was doing the rounds. Sharavana being classified a backward as he belongs to the Arya Vaishya community is only incidental as out of the seven MLC candidates from all the three parties, three belong to backward communities, two to SCs and STs, one Lingayat and one from the minority community.
BJP has ignored prominent aspirant BY Vijayendra. While Yediyurappa supporters blamed Santosh for this. state chief Nalin Kumar Kateel said the party had forwarded Vijayendra’s name to the party central leadership after the state core committee meeting and the high command would have a solid reason to deny the ticket. Vijayendra also made a written request to his supporters not to blame anyone. Manjula a vokkaliga who was identified with the B S Yediyurappa camp has been ignored although her name figured in the core committee list. Lingaraj Patil, whose name too was proposed by the core committee, and BJP Mahila Morcha president Geetha Vivekananda too have been ignored.
The election is scheduled for June 3, but it will be a mere formality as it is a foregone conclusion that these candidates will be elected. Each candidate requires 29 votes and parties have fielded candidates according to their party numbers.