Sangliana given the ticket for Bangalore Central and Sharief from Bangalore North
Stalwarts in the race: (From left) Sangliana, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, S. Bangarappa, C.K. Jaffer Sharief and N. Dharam Singh
Two former Chief Ministers of the State, S. Bangarappa (Shimoga) and N. Dharam Singh (Bidar) apart from two former presidents of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee M. Mallikarjun Kharge (Gulbarga) and B. Janardhana Poojary (Dakshina Kannada) have been fielded to drive home the point that the party is serious about retaining its lost glory in Karnataka.
In the 2004 general elections, the Congress fared poorly, winning eight of the 28 seats compared to the general elections in earlier decades when the party yielded very few seats to the Opposition parties.
The party is yet to finalise candidates for Karwar, Bangalore South, Udupi, Chickaballapur, Chamarajanagar and Mandya. The party high command has turned down the request of MP K. Virupakshappa (Koppal) and has fielded the former Housing Minister Basavaraj Rayaraddi in his place.
The party has not finalised the candidate for Mandya which was won in 2004 by Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and film actor M.H. Ambareesh. The former Chairman of the Bangalore Development Authority L.R. Shivarame Gowda has sought party ticket for the constituency.
Mr. Ambareesh had won on a Janata Dal ticket in the 1998 general elections and thereafter crossed over to the Congress to win the 1999 and 2004 elections.
The party has re-nominated Tejaswini Gowda for the Bangalore Rural seat, and she will face the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular) whose candidature was announced by that party on Friday.
It is stated that the tussle for ticket in Chickaballapur between the former Chief Minister M. Veerappa Moily and the former MLA M.R. Seetharam has resulted in the party high command delaying the announcement on the candidate. Chickaballapur has a large electorate belonging to the Balija community to which Mr. Seetharam belongs.
The former Railway Minister and party loyalist C.K. Jaffer Sharief, who sought the ticket for Bangalore Central, has been given Bangalore North while the party high command which had reportedly promised the ticket to H.T. Sangliana when he voted in favour of the trust votehas stood by its word.
The party has delayed the announcement for the Bangalore South seat. The former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna was one of the aspirants.
The former Bangalore Police Commissioner P. Kodandaramaiah, associated with the former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, will be the candidate for the Tumkur seat while former cricketer Prakash Rathod has been fielded for the Bijapur reserved seat.
Sources in the Congress told that never before had the All India Congress Committee faced such a difficult task in finalising the list of candidates for the State.
It was left to the AICC president Sonia Gandhi to take a final call on the selection of candidates for the six constituencies since even the party’s central election committee found it a difficult task.
Of the nearly 100 aspirants who were shortlisted, there were 15 top leaders vying for around six seats. This was stated to have been the crux of the problem.
The other candidates are: Prakash Hukkeri (Chikkodi), Amar Singh Patil ( Belgaum), J.T. Patil (Bagalkot), Raja Venkatappa Naik (Raichur), N.Y. Hanumanthappa (Bellary), Saleem Ahmed (Haveri), Manjunath Kunnur (Dharwad), S.S. Mallikarjun (Davanagere), B. Shivaram (Hassan), B. Thippeswamy (Chitradurga), H. Vishwanath (Mysore), K.H. Muniyappa (Kolar).
