BENGALURU: There was much speculation as to who would be the BJP RS candidates from Karnataka after strong rumours from within the party that it would pick Kannadigas. On Sunday evening, the party chose Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, an outsider, and Kannada actor Jaggesh, for its two seats.
Congress, meanwhile, named former union minister Jairam Ramesh, whose candidature too was cleared late on Sunday evening. He is expected to file his nomination on Monday morning, accompanied by senior Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar.
Since BJP has not announced a third candidate, the door is wide open for JDS to come out with its candidate. But it does not have the required 46 MLAs to get its representative elected. There was a talk earlier that BJP could come out with a third candidate.
But if it did, it had to answer embarrassing questions as to how it would get votes for this candidate. Sources said that the runner for this seat has to spend a lot to win elections, and he would have to be a high-networth individual.
JDS candidate to be announced today
Though BJP needs more members in the Rajya Sabha, it does not want to court a controversy when the Assembly elections are just nine months away. JDS is expected to announce Kupendra Reddy as its candidate on Monday.
When Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, who was with BJP, used to get elected from Karnataka to the Rajya Sabha, a debate against giving representation to outsiders from Karnataka arose. Soon after, Naidu was moved away from the state.