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When the Congress released a third list of 43 candidates for the Karnataka Assembly polls on Saturday, Opposition leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah missed out on the Kolar seat. The party has fielded Kothur G Manjunath, a former MLA from the Mulbagal constituency, instead.
Manjunath was disqualified as Mulbagal MLA in 2018 over a case related to a fake caste certificate. He was seen as a rival of former Union minister K H Muniyappa in the region and brought into the Congress fold by Siddaramaiah.
Former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi, who left the BJP to join the Congress, featured in the list as the candidate from Athani in Belagavi district, where the saffron party has fielded Mahesh Kumathalli, one of the 17 defectors who helped the BJP form the government in 2019.
The candidatures of four sitting Congress MLAs are still uncertain as the party has not announced any names for their constituencies. They are Akhanda Srinivas Murthy (Pulakeshinagar, Bengaluru Urban district), D S Hoolageri (Lingsugur, Raichur district), S Ramappa (Harihar, Davanagere district) and V Muniyappa (Sidlaghatta, Chikkaballapur district).
The Congress has so far announced 209 candidates in three lists and has to name 15 more.
Before he was named the candidate from Varuna in Mysuru district, as part of the first list of 124 candidates, Siddaramaiah had evinced interest to contest the poll from Kolar. In January, he said he had “decided to be the candidate from Kolar in the upcoming election”. “But this is subject to approval from the high command… We have to follow the procedure,” he had said.
Unlike in 2018, when Siddaramaiah contested the polls from two constituencies—Badami and Chamundeshwari—the party decided to field him from only one seat this time. He narrowly won Badami and lost Chamundeshwari in 2018.
Among other prominent faces on the list is former JD(S) MLA K M Shivalinge Gowda, one of the legislators recently inducted by the Congress. He is the candidate from Arsikere in Hassan district, a seat he has won thrice since 2008.
Nivedith Alva, son of veteran Congress leader Margaret Alva, will contest the poll from Kumta in Uttara Kannada district.
At Kundgol in Dharwad district, Kusuma C Shivalli, wife of former minister C S Shivalli, is the candidate. She won the bypoll held following her husband’s death in 2019 and will run for a second time.
Nayana Motamma, daughter of former minister Motamma, is the candidate from Mudigere in Chikkamagaluru district.
