BENGALURU: The Congress party, which sprung a surprise by replacing its candidate against Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in Shiggaon, seems to have yielded to the pressure by its Kolar candidate Kothuru G Manjunath and changed its candidate for Mulbagal (SC) seat on Thursday.
The party replaced BC Muddugangadhar with Kothuru’s aide Adinarayana, a former JDS leader. On Wednesday Dr Muddugangadhar was among the four candidates declared by the party. He collected the ‘B’ Form at night and was all set to file his papers on Thursday morning.
But Kothuru, who is in the Siddaramaiah camp, gave jitters to the party, saying that he will not file papers for the Kolar seat if the ticket for Mulbagal is not given to Adinarayana. After hectic discussions, Adinarayana was declared as party candidate for Mulbagal.
This came as a setback for AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and former union minister KH Muniyappa who were in favour of Dr Muddugangadhar, a former Youth Congress leader, who is also close to Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge.
“Dr Muddugangadhar, a political novice, failed to take Kothur into confidence and that resulted in this chaos,” a leader said.
Initially, Kothur said that he would not file papers for the Kolar seat if Mulbagal was not given to Adinarayana. The party leadership then asked Youth Congress leader Praveen Gowda to get ready to file his papers. But eventually, Kothur succeeded in his game plan. Kothur and Adinarayana filed their papers for Kolar and Mulbagal seats, respectively.
Final list
The Congress party unveiled its final list of five candidates on Thursday. It announced Mohammed Shalam (Raichur City), BV Rajeev Gowda (Sidlaghatta), S Anand Kumar (CV Raman Nagar SC seat), HP Sridhar Gowda (Arakalgudu), and Inayat Ali (Mangaluru City North).