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Journalism of Courage
The BJP on Wednesday night released a second list of 23 candidates for the May 10 Karnataka Assembly polls, with seven sitting MLAs replaced with new candidates.
The list does not include former chief minister and six-term MLA Jagadish Shettar, who met BJP president J P Nadda earlier in the day to stake his claim to contest from his Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency, PTI reported. The party has already named its candidate from the seat.
The second list comes a day after the first list of 189 candidates released on Tuesday night in which nine sitting MLAs were dropped.
Sixteen of 16 sitting MLAs, out of a total of 116 BJP legislators in the House, have so far lost out on election tickets. In the second list of 23, four sitting MLAs have been granted tickets.
Among Legislators who have been been denied a ticket are C M Nimbannavar from Kalghatgi constituency, who has been replaced by Congress rebel Nagaraj Chabbi from Kalghatgi seat; Haveri MLA Nehru Olekar; S A Ravindranath (MLA from Davangere North); Linganna (Mayakonda), Madal Virupakshappa (Channagiri); Sukumar Shetty (Baindur); and M P Kumaraswamy (Mudigere).
Several of the rejected MLAs were in the age group of 70 years, and some — such as Olekar and Virupakshappa — have been linked with corruption cases.
There are two women candidates in the second list, which takes the number of women fielded by BJP in its list of 212 candidates so far to 10. Candidates for 12 seats in the 224-member Assembly remain to be announced.
The entire BJP list will be out by Friday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Wednesday.
The process of filing nominations will begin on Thursday, with the election notification also being issued for nominations. The last date for nominations is April 20, and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is April 24. The Congress has so far released a list of 166 candidates and the JD(S) has named 93 party candidates.
