Bengaluru:Congress has released the first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly Elections to the 224 seat has nearly half of the 124 candidates from two dominant communities - Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Apart from these two dominant communities, Dalits and Tribals have secured double digit shares in the announced list.
Nine out of 70 sitting MLAs from the present Assembly are yet to figure in the Congress and the rest have been accommodated by the Congress party. Of this, candidates are yet to be announced for eight seats. One seat where the sitting MLA was denied ticket is Siddaramaiah's son Yathindra's seat - Varuna constituency.
The seat was allocated to his father and Opposition leader. It is being said that Siddaramaiah will contest from another constituency as well and he has expressed his interest to contest from Kolar constituency. Badami which is considered to be a safe seat has not figured in the released list.
Nine in waiting - The eight legislators whose constituencies have not been covered in the first list are waiting for the next round of candidate list expected to follow. Venkataramanappa MY Patil, V Muniappa, Kusuma Sivalli, Harihara Ramappa, and Akhand Srinivas Murthy, are among those in waiting. It is still unclear whether Yatindra Siddaramaiah will get a shot at the ballot this time.
Lingayats and Vokkaligas -A fourth of the candidates in the first list is from Lingayat community. 32 seats would go for Veerashaiva Lingayats while 25 will go to Vokkaligas which includes dominant Reddy community. 22 seats were earmarked for Scheduled Castes, 10 for Scheduled Tribes, 5 each for Marathas, Brahmins, and Kurubas, 4 for Idigas and 2 for Rajputs.
8 Tickets for Muslims -8 Muslim candidates have been allowed in the first list of Congress. Jameer Ahmed, Khatija Fatima, Rahim Khan, Rizwan Arshad, Tanveer Seth, UT Khader, NA Harris and Iqbal Hussain have been given tickets. Most of them are either incumbents or those who have contested and lost in the previous elections.
Heavyweights announced so far-Priyank Kharge, son of AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, will contest from Chittapur. KPCC president DK Shivakumar will contest from Kanakapur as expected. Former minister Ramalinga Reddy and his daughter Soumya Reddy will fight from BTM layout and Jayanagar, respectively.
SS Mallikarjuna will enter the poll fray from Davangere North Constituency while his father Shamanur Shivshankarappa from Davanagere South Constituency. Devanahalli seat will be fought by former Union Minister KH Muniyappa while his daughter Rupa Sashidhar (Rupkala M) will fight from KGF.
Sitting MLA M Krishnappa has got the ticket from Bangalore's Vijayanagar Assembly Constituency and his son son Priya Krishna, who lost last time was given a ticket from Govindaraj Nagar constituency. Former Speaker KB Koliwada's sone Prakash will enter the fray from Ranebennur constituency.
Former Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa had requested to give ticket to his daughter from Sagar Constituency, which was not approved and the seat was allotted to Gopalakrishna Bulur. The son of KPCC working president Dhruvanarayan, who died of a heart attack recently, has been given an opportunity and he will enter the poll fray from Nanjangudu (Reserved-SC ) Constituency.
The ticket for Afzalpur in Kalaburgi district has not been announced yet and the sitting MLA MY Patil has requsted the seat be given to his son. However, there are 8 aspirants from the Constituency. Tickets have been announced for 17 of the 28 Assembly Constituencies in Bangalore, and all the sitting MLAs have received tickets.
