Cong announces six candidates for K'taka bypolls

Bengaluru: The Congress on Saturday released a list of six candidates for the December 5 assembly bypolls in Karnataka.

The party has fielded Gajanan Balachandra Mangasuli from Athani, Bharamgouda Alagouda Kage from Kagwad and Lakhan Jarkiholi from Gokak.

It has also given nomination to Venkatrao Ghorpade from Vijayanagara, Rizwan Arshad from Shivajinagar and K B Chandrashekar from Krishnarajpet.

A party statement said Congress president Sonia Gandhi has approved the names of the candidates.

The Congress also named Praveen Peter as its candidate for the biennial election to the legislative council of Karnataka.

Bypolls will be held in 15 constituencies as the sitting Congress-JDS MLAs were disqualified by then Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar ahead of a trust vote, which led to the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy government and the return of the B S Yediyurappa-led BJP to power in July.

In total 17 MLAs were disqualified but bypolls will be held in 15 of those seats as by-elections to Maski and RR Nagar constituencies are withheld with separate cases regarding them pending before the high court.

Sixteen of the 17 disqualified Congress-JD(S) legislators have joined the BJP and 13 of them have been given nomination by the saffron party from their respective seats.

The BJP will need to win at least six of these 15 seats to remain in power. Of the 15 constituencies, 12 were represented by Congress and three by JD(S).

The last date for filing of nominations for the bypolls is November 18.