The Congress on Thursday released its sixth and final list of candidates for the remaining five constituencies for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.
The party has fielded B V Rajeev Gowda from Sidlaghatta, replacing sitting MLA V Muniyappa. The other candidates include Mohammed Shalam form Raichur, S Anand Kumar from C V Raman Nagar, H P Sridhar Gowda from Arkalgud and Inayath Ali from Mangalore City North.
With the sixth list, the Congress has fielded 223 candidates, marking one seat in the 224-member Assembly for Sarvodaya Karnataka Party, a regional outfit.
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On Wednesday night, Congress released its fifth list with three new candidates. Sitting MLA from Pulakeshinagar Akhanda Srinivas Murthy was denied a ticket and was replaced with AC Srinivas. It fielded B C Muddugangadhar from the Mulbagal (SC) seat.
The Congress was in a dilemma on giving ticket to Murthy, a Dalit who had won the 2018 assembly election with the highest margin of 81,626 votes and created a record. His house along with the DJ Halli police station was torched by a violent mob in August 2020, over a social media post shared by his relative.
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Meanwhile, Murthy filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate on Wednesday. Murthy said he had faith in the people of his constituency who had helped him win with a huge margin. “I have hope that the people of my constituency will back me because my constituency gave me the maximum votes in the entire state (in 2018),” he said.
In Bengaluru’s K R Pura, Congress has fielded D K Mohan against BJP’s Byrathi Basavaraj, a Minister in the Basavaraj Bommai government. Basavaraj had won the seat on a Congress ticket in the 2018 Assembly polls. He was among the 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs who resigned, which had led to the collapse of the coalition government and paved the way for BJP to come to power in 2019. In the subsequent bypolls, he won on a BJP ticket.
The party had on Wednesday replaced Mohammed Yousuf Savanur as its candidate from the Shiggaon constituency, currently under Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, and fielded Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan instead from there. Bommai had defeated Sayed Azeempeer Khadri Shiggaon in the 2018 elections.
The last date for filing of nominations is April 20. Scrutiny of nominations will take place on April 21, and the last day for the withdrawal of candidature is April 24.
The assembly polls in the state will take place on May 10 and the results will be announced on May 13.
(With inputs from agencies.)
