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Karnataka MLC polls: Congress clears 4 names, 1 more to go
The Karnataka Legislative Council elections for seven seats will be held on June 18. The Congress is expected to finalise one more candidate before the last date of filing nominations on June 8.
B K Hariprasad is among the four Congress leaders who will contest the upcoming Karnataka Legislative Council elections. He was appointed president of the party's state unit on Wednesday. (File Photo)
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) on Wednesday finalised four candidates to contest the upcoming biennial elections to the Karnataka Legislative Council.
The polls for seven seats, where MLAs elect members to the Upper House of the state legislature, will be held on June 18. The four candidates are B K Hariprasad, Tippannappa Kamaknoor, P V Mohan, and Shivanna Malavalli.
While Hariprasad, who will succeed Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar as president of the Karnataka Congress unit, and Kamaknoor have retained their seats in the Council, Mohan and Malavalli are fresh picks.
Congress, by virtue of its numbers, can elect five candidates. One more candidate is expected to be finalised before the last date of filing nomination papers on June 8.
Apart from Hariprasad and Kamaknoor, the terms of Congress MLCs Govindaraju and Naseer Ahmed, BJP MLCs MTB Nagaraju, Prathap Simha Nayak, and Sunil Vallyapur end on June 30.
The BJP is yet to finalise its candidates for two seats. The saffron party, it is learnt, was unlikely to cede any seats to its coalition partner JD(S).
Hariprasad is a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee and a former Rajya Sabha MP. Of the other three, Kamaknoor hails from Kalaburagi district and is considered a loyalist of AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge. Mohan is the AICC secretary and hails from the coastal Dakshina Kannada district. Shivanna, a socialist, is considered close to former chief minister Siddaramaiah. He is from the Mandya district.
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Among the outgoing MLCs are Govindaraju, who was sacked as political secretary to Siddaramaiah following the stampede near M Chinnaswamy Stadium that killed 11 people and injured several others last year.
Ahmed, who was also political secretary, was removed from the post following allegations of anti-party activity during the recently held bypoll for the Davanagere South constituency.
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