New Delhi: Karnataka Congress on Thursday announced the second list of 42 candidates for the state's assembly election set to take place on May 10. In the second list of Congress, 41 candidates are from the party and one seat is marked for the regional outfit Sarvodaya Karnataka Party. The Congress has marked the Melukote assembly constituency for Darshan Puttannaiah of the Sarvodaya Karnataka Party. The party had announced candidates on 124 seats earlier.
In the second list, four leaders who joined the Congress recently have been given tickets. They are N Y Gopalakrishna, Baburao Chinchansur, S R Srinivas and V S Patil.
The Congress party has refrained from announcing its candidate for the Kolar constituency in the second list. This move comes as former Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah expressed his interest in contesting from both two constituencies.
It's worth noting that Siddaramaiah's name was already included in the first list, where he was assigned to contest from the Varuna constituency. However, the veteran politician seems keen on contesting from Kolar as well.
In the first list, Congress announced that state party president DK Shivakumar will be contesting from the Kanakapura constituency. Priyank Kharge will be contesting from Chitapur (SC) constituency.
Amid expectations that former chief minister and leader of the oppositionSiddaramaiah will contest from Varuna, the leader was allotted the same constituency by the Congress's high command.
The BJP government, being led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai is also putting in efforts to return to power and stressing the Kannadigas issue, reservation to the Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities by scrapping a religion-based reservation for the Muslim community, a decision which the state government took recently.