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Congress on Monday announced M Nagaraju Yadav and K Abdul Jabbar as its candidates for the biennial election to seven seats of Karnataka legislative council, to be elected by the members of legislative assembly, scheduled for June 3.
Tuesday is the last date to file nominations for the polls.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has approved the proposal for the candidature of Yadav and Jabbar, the All India Congress Committee said in a release.
While, Yadav is the former chairman of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Jabbar is currently the president of the minority cell of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) and a former MLC.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal-Secular have not announced their candidates yet.
The election is necessitated as the term of office of seven members expires on June 14.
The seats will be falling vacant due to the retirement of MLCs -- Laxman Sangappa Savadi and Lahar Singh Siroya of BJP; Ramappa Timmapur, Allum Veerabhadrappa, Veena Achaiah S of Congress; and H M Ramesha Gowda and Narayana Swamy K V of JD-S.
According to official sources, in this election, each MLC candidate will require a minimum of 29 votes to win, and on the basis of minimum votes required and tallying it with the strength of each party in the Legislative Assembly, the BJP is expected to win four seats, Congress two, and JD-S one.
There were too many MLC ticket aspirants in the Congress party.
State Congress president D K Shivakumar had earlier today said there were more than 200 aspirants for the two seats.
There were also talks about differences between Shivakumar and Congress Legislature party leader Siddaramaiah regarding candidates the State unit had recommended to the high command. However, both leaders had rejected such speculation.
Senior party leader and former Minister S R Patil was among the key aspirants for the ticket.
The polling will be held between 9 am - 4 pm on June 3 and counting of votes at 5 pm that day.