LS polls: BJP to field Yeddyurappa from Shimoga

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday released its second list of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. The Election Commission has cleared 52 candidates of which 20 are from Karnataka.   

Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa will contest from Shimoga while senior leader Ananth Kumar will take on Nandan Nilekeni of the Congress from Bangalore South.

Sadananda Gowda, also a former CM, will be BJP’s candidate from the Bangalore North seat while P C Mohan would be the candidate from Bangalore Central.

The BJP will field sitting member of Parliament Nalin Kumar Kateel from Dakshin Kannada while state unit president Prahlad Joshi will contest from Dharwad.

The Congress too has finalised its list for Karnataka but is likely to make an official announcement in a day or two. All sitting MPs have been retained including Union Oil Minister Veerappa Moily and Union Railways Minister Mallikarjuna Kharge.

However, from Bangalore North the Congress would ask its local to elect the candidate, a system introduced by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi to pick candidates for 2014 polls.

The Janata Dal-Secular will also make its list public in the coming week. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding the list since a few members of the Karnataka Janatha Party, which was floated by Yeddyurappa after he quit the BJP in 2012, have expressed their desire to join the JD-S.

The former CM was re-inducted in the BJP in January after an invitation from president Rajnath Singh. The KJP merged with the BJP, but several of his supporters were unhappy with the decision.

Among those keep to join the JD-S is Yeddyurappa's closest aide Dhananjay Kumar.

Image: B S Yeddyurappa was re-inducted in the party in January