BENGALURU: Congress nominees Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrashekar on Thursday filed nomination papers for the February 27 Rajya Sabha elections from Karnataka. Meanwhile, Narayana Sa Bhandage filed his papers as a BJP nominee. As the four seats from Karnataka will be vacant, there is a scope for as many candidates to get elected. Two more people have also filed their papers as Independents.
But in a surprise move, the JDS has nominated former Rajya Sabha member D Kupendra Reddy as the fifth candidate with the backing of its alliance partner in the Lok Sabha polls -- BJP -- resulting in some sensation. But according to political pundits, though the victory of the fifth candidate is scarce, the alliance partners have fielded Reddy apparently to ensure that the surplus votes of BJP get transferred to the JDS candidate which would otherwise end up in cross voting to the Congress candidates. They also want to send out a message that they are closely knit ahead of the General Election.
To achieve this, JDS leaders met former CM and BJP parliamentary board member BS Yediyurappa on Thursday evening to discuss the chances of Reddy’s victory.
For victory, each candidate needs a minimum of 45. The Congress has 135 MLAs and claims to have the support of three Independents -Darshan Puttannaiah, Latha Mallikarjun, and Puttaswamy Gowda.
The BJP has 66 MLAs and JDS has 19 and both combined it will be 85. After allotting 45 votes to its candidate, the BJP is likely to transfer a surplus of 21 votes to the JDS candidate. Yet Reddy would get 40 votes and has to look out for five more votes to reach the magic number.
He may try to garner the support of Gangavathi MLA Gali Janardhana Reddy besides the cross-voting from 3-4 Congress MLAs and if that happens it proves a disaster for the Congress as one of its three nominees will lose but given the Congress being in the power it is a rarity, observed a political expert.
But to be on the safer side, the BJP is likely to allot 45-50 votes to its candidate. “Congress will get ‘conscience votes’ from JDS and BJP for its candidates. We too have friends (MLAs) across parties,” DyCM and KPCC president DK Shivakumar said.