Congress announces names of 8 candidates for December 5 Karnataka by-election

BENGALURU: The Congress on Thursday (October 31) released names of 8 candidates for 15 Karnataka by-election, scheduled to be held on December 5. The results of by-elections will be declared on December 9.

"Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi has approved names of 8 candidates for the ensuing by-elections in Karnataka," said Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in a statement in New Delhi. A Congress spokesperson told IANS that the party will announce the names of the candidates for the remaining seven seats in the near future.

The names of Congress candidates are: Bhimmanna Naik (Yellapur), B.H. Bannikod (Hirekerur), K.B. Koliwad (Rannebennur), M. Anjanappa (Chikkaballapur), M. Narayanswamy (K.R. Pura), M. Shivaraj (Mahalakshmi Layout), Padmavathi Suresh (Hoskote) and H.P. Manjunath (Hunsur).

The by-elections in Karnataka have been necessitated following the 14 Congress and 3 Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) rebel MLAs who were then disqualified by former Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar under anti-defection law.

By-elections for Maski (reserved) seat and R.R. Nagar seat are not being held as results from these two seats in the election held in May 2018 were challenged in the Karnataka High Court and the court is yet to deliver its verdict in this matter. The expelled MLAs were disqualified by Congress and the JD-S in July 2019 after they approached the Supreme Court challenging their disqualification.

The Congress-JDS government, which remained in power for 14 months, lost the trust vote on July 23 due to the defection by these MLAs. Notably, the Congress and JDS have decided to contest by-elections separately.

Earlier, the by-election was scheduled to take place on October 21 along with Assembly elections for Maharashtra and Haryana but the Election Commission decided to postpone these by-election to December 5 because the joint pleas of the disqualified members were pending in Supreme Court.

The Congress on Thursday also released the names of R.M Kuberappa and Sharanappa Mattur to contest the biennial elections to the state legislative council from the Karnataka West Graduates` constituency and Karnataka North East Teachers` constituency, respectively. The date for election to the legislative council seats is yet to be notified.