Congress List of 218 Candidates for Karnataka Polls Out, Siddaramaiah to Contest From Chamundeshwari

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday released its first list for the Karnataka Assembly elections, comprising 218 candidates. The list includes the names of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and state Congress chief G Parameshwara. The party is yet take a decision on five seats.

Siddaramaiah will contest from the Chamundeshwari Assembly seat and Parameshwara will be in the fray from the Korategere Assembly constituency. Contrary to expectations, Siddaramaiah has only kept one seat for himself. There were rumors that he wanted to play it safe and contest from two seats.

Speculation was rife that Siddaramaiah was going to keep a "backup" seat in north Karnataka after being convinced by his well-wishers about the dangers of relying only on the Chamundeshwari seat in view of a “deal” between JDS and the BJP there. Similarly, there was talk that Parameshwara was also pushing for two seats, but was turned down by Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

The party has also not applied the "one-family, one-ticket" formula for the Karnataka polls as it granted tickets to the chief minister and his son, the Home minister and his daughter, and the Law minister and his son. The Congress had followed this rule in the Punjab polls held last year.

The first list includes 15 women candidates and the names of the seven former JD-S and two ex-BJP legislators who joined the party earlier this year.

The chief minister's son, Yatheendra, was fielded by the Congress from the Varuna Assembly constituency (Mysore), while Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy will contest the polls from BTM Layout and his daughter Soumya R from the Jayanagara Assembly constituency (Bengaluru).

Law minister T B Jayachandra's son Santosh Jayachandra was given a ticket from the Chikanayakanhalli Assembly seat (Tumkur).

Senior Congress leader's son Priyank Kharge was given a ticket and he will contest the polls from the Chitapur (Reserved) seat in Gulbarga district.

Among the battles that will be keenly watched will be between former mayor Padmavathi, who will contest against BJP veteran Suresh Kumar. Congress had always fielded Manjula Naidu against him till now and lost every time. Padmavathi is a loyalist of DK Shivakumar and had got a good reputation as a mayor. Her term had ended in mid-2017.

Of the five constituencies from where Congress has not yet announced candidates for is Shanthinagar, the seat of NA Haris, who got embroiled in a controversy after his son Mohammed Haris Nalapad brutally assaulted a man at a prominent Bengaluru café.

Party insiders said that Congress is sure of a victory here as it is a minority dominated constituency. However, they are worried that even if Haris is able to win this seat, they may lose out on four or five other seats in Bengaluru purely because of the reputation. So, not giving a ticket to Haris may help in other city segments. With 28 seats, Bangalore Urban is the single biggest chunk and is crucial for Congress.

The Congress has also not announced any candidate from Melukote yet. There is a possibility that the party will support Swaraj India candidate Darshan Puttanaiah, the son of farmer activist Puttanaiah, who had died two months ago. Bengaluru mayor Sampath Raj will contest from CV Raman Nagar constituency.