The Congress on Saturday, 25 March, announced its first list of candidates for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections.
Who are in the list? The list includes former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, state party chief DK Shivakumar, and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's son Priyank Kharge, among other leaders of the grand old party.
The first list includes 124 names for the total 224 constituencies in the state.
Releasing the list, the party said in a tweet, "Here is the first list of Congress candidates finalised by the CEC for the forthcoming Karnataka Assembly elections."
Siddaramaiah to contest from Varuna: As was confirmed to The Quint days earlier, Siddaramaiah will contest from the Varuna constituency, and not Kolar, for which the former CM had prepared grounds for months.
The decision was taken after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a request to this effect on Monday, 20 March.
In his formal application to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) in February, the former CM had mentioned Badami, Varuna, and Kolar as the three constituencies from which he would choose. Badami and Kolar however do not feature in the first list.
In 2018 elections, Siddaramaiah had contested from his native Chamundeshwari and Badami constituencies. While he was defeated by over a margin of 25,000 votes in Chamundeshwari, he won from Badami with a margin of over 1,500 votes.
Why Varuna? The Varuna constituency is currently a Congress seat held by Siddaramaiah's son Yathindra Siddaramaiah, who had won the seat with a comfortable margin of 45,000 votes.
With a different political future being projected for his son, the party is expecting that if Siddaramaiah contests this seat, the winning margin will be even higher.
Furthermore, Siddaramaiah decided to give up his Kolar ambition because the Congress believes that there is an underhand deal between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) in the constituency.
Currently, K Srinivasa Gowda of JD(S) is the incumbent MLA in Kolar.
DK Shivakumar to contest from Kanakapura: State party chief DK Shivakumar will contest from the Kanakapura constituency in Ramanagara district.
In 2018 elections, Shivakumar had defeated JD(S) candidate Narayana Gowda with a margin of over 79,000 votes.
Shivakumar has repeatedly represented the constituency since 2008 after his erstwhile Sathanur seat was abolished during the delimitation exercise (Kanakapura seat however does include several areas from the old Sathanur seat).
There were no surprises in Shivakumar being allotted Kanakapura, as the KPCC president was always set to contest from here.
Other candidates:
Veteran Congress leader KH Muniyappa, the seven-time MP and former Union Minister has been fielded from Devanahalli, while his daughter and sitting MLA from Kolar Gold Field (KGF) Roopakala M has once again got the ticket from the segment.
The 91-year old veteran leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa has once again been fielded from Davanagere South, while his son, SS Mallikarjun has been fielded from Davanagere North.
Other names in the list included Satish Jarkiholi from Yemkanmardi, Lakshmi Hebbalkar from Belgaum Rural, party president Mallikarjun Kharge's son Priyank Kharge from Chittapur, Rizwan Arshad from Shivajinagar, Dinesh Gundu Rao from Gandhinagar, Tanveer Sait from Narasimharaja, BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan from Chamrajpet, and former deputy CM G Parameshwara from Koratagere.
This comes days after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), with its first elections attempt in the southern state, released its first list of 80 candidates.
The Election Commission is yet to announce the dates for the Assembly polls.
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