New Delhi: The former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Wednesday officially declared that his grandson Prajwal Revanna will be the party candidate for Hassan Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka. H D Deve Gowda is a member of the 16th Lok Sabha, representing the Hassan constituency. Prajwal, son of Gowda's elder son and senior JD(S) leader HD Revanna, who was until recently involved in party activities as a worker in Hassan district, the family's home turf, was in November appointed state general secretary. The appointment was then seen as a push to the political aspirations of Prajwal, who has been openly demanding a party ticket for the assembly elections.


The JD(S) and the Deve Gowda family have also come under criticism in the social media for their plans to field Nikhil from Mandya and another grandson, Prajwal Revanna, from Hassan. While Deve Gowda himself is a sitting MP, his son HD Kumaraswamy is a Chief Minister and another son is a cabinet minister. His two grandsons have been given tickets to contest the Lok Sabha polls.

Earlier, amid confusion about the seat Deve Gowda would be contesting from, the former Prime Minister clarified that he has not yet reached any final decision on it. A meeting on seat sharing between Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Gowda at Delhi last week was inconclusive. However, scaling down his party's demand, Gowda had asked Congress to allot at least 10 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats to his party.

JD(S) had earlier demanded that it be given 12 seats.  According to sources, the Congress may concede a maximum of eight seats to the JD(S), but the constituencies are yet to be finalized. The Congress held its screening committee meeting under the leadership of party General Secretary K C Venugopal in Delhi on Monday to discuss about seats and candidates.

Karnataka, with 28 Lok Sabha seats will go for polls in two phases. While 14 seats will go to the polls in phase 2 on April 18, the rest 14 will vote in phase 3 on April 23.