Bengaluru: Sumalatha Ambareesh, the wife of late actor-politician Ambareesh, is among 16 candidates whofiled their nominations in Karnataka on Wednesday for the Lok Sabha polls.A total of 17 nominations have been received from 16candidates on Wednesday, poll officials said, adding thatcumulative nominations received stands at 28 from 22 candidates.
Nominations filed were two each from Tumkur, Mandya, Bangalore North, Bangalore central, three each from Bangalore Rural and Mysore, and one each from Bangalore south andChikkaballapur.
With all the three major political parties, the BJP, Congress and JD(S), yet to announce their list of candidates, those who filed nominations on Wednesday were mainlyindependents and from smaller parties.
Sumalatha filed her nomination as an independentcandidate from Mandya, where she is likely to take on Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy asCongress-JD(S) coalition's candidate. Sumalatha, a popular south Indian actress, visited the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysuru, ahead of filing nomination.
After filing the nomination, she travelled to a venuewhere a public meeting was organised in a procession in anopen vehicle. A large number of people, mainly Ambareesh's fans, irrespective of their party association, joined theprocession.
She was accompanied by her actor son Abhishek and personalities of Kannada film industry, including actors Darshan and Yash. Some people, allegedly Congress workers, took part in the procession with party flag, despite the grand oldparty denying Sumalatha ticket and lending its support to alliance partner JD(S)' candidate Nikhil.
Addressing the gathering, Sumalatha, declaring thatshe was the daughter-in-law of Mandya, sought support to carryforward her late husband's legacy and association with the people there. She vowed to be the voice of the people of Mandya in Parliament. Karnataka will go to the polls in two phases, 14constituencies each, on April 18 and 23.
While the last date for the filing of nominationsfor the first phase of Lok Sabha polls is on March 26, scrutiny will take place on March 27, the last date for withdrawalis March 29. For the second phase polls on April 23, notification will be issued on March 28.
The last date for nomination is April 4, scrutiny on April 5 and the last day for withdrawals April 8. Counting of votes and announcement of results forboth phases are scheduled for May 23. In the 2014 general election, the BJP had bagged 17, Congress 9 and JD(S) two seats.
However, in the bypolls, the BJP had yielded the Bellary seat to Congress. The Congress-JD(S) ruling coalition that has decided tofight the polls in the alliance will contest 20 and 8 seats respectively.
