A meeting of the senior Congress leaders in underaway at party president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence in Delhi to finalise the candidates for remaining 58 seats for the May 10 Karnataka polls. Party leader Rahul Gandhi was also present in the meeting. The party has already released two lists as the Election Commission set the date for last date of nominations on April 20. On Thursday the Congress had announced its second list of 42 candidates. On March 25, the party had released its first list of 124 candidate, before the Election Commission of India announced poll schedule for the state.
In the second list of candidates, 41 contestants are from the party while one seat has been reserved for the regional outfit Sarvodaya Karnataka Party. The Congress has marked the Melukote assembly constituency for Darshan Puttannaiah of the Sarvodaya Karnataka Party.
N Y Gopalakrishna, Baburao Chinchansur, and VS Patil who switched sides with Congress from BJP were also given a ticket by the party. SR Srinivas, who left Janata Dal (Secular) to join Congress, also got a ticket.
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief DK Shivakumar's name appeared in the first list of candidates who has been fielded by the party from Kanakpura constituency.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's son, Priyank Kharge will be contesting the polls from Chitapur (SC) constituency.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is also expected to release it first list of candidates today as the party's Central Election Committee meeting held today. The party's core group had shortlisted three names for each Assembly seat which would be placed before the CEC after which the party's central leadership would brainstorm over these names before locking the candidates.
On Friday, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that BJP's state election commission has listed three names per constituency for the May 10 assembly polls