The stage is set for an electoral battle in 28 Lok Sabha and one assembly constituencies going to polls in Karnataka. Following the withdrawal of nominations for the second phase polls in the state ending today, 427 candidates are left in the fray for Lok Sabha polls and 18 candidates for a lone assembly constituency of Bidar.
The election is being held for 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in the first phase going to polls on April 23 and the remaining 11 LS constituencies going to polls on April 30. In the first phase of polls as many as 271 candidates are in the fray and 156 are fighting it out in the second phase.
Five former chief ministers, including S Bangarappa, Veerappa Moily, H D Deve Gowda, N Dharam Singh and H D Kumaraswamy and 16 sitting members of parliament are seeking election to the Lok Sabha. However, 12 sitting MPs have either opted out of active politics or have been denied tickets by their respective political parties. H D Deve Gowda is the only former prime minister from Karnataka.
Among the sitting MPs seeking re-election, one is a Union minister in the UPA-led cabinet, such as K H Muniyappa, minister for road transport and Revu Naik Belamagi, minister for animal husbandry in the B S Yeddyurappa cabinet in the state. The former union ministers C K Jaffer Sharief, Margaret Alva, H N Ananth Kumar, and state minister Mallikarjun Kharge are also contesting from Bangalore North, Uttara Kannada, Bangalore South and Gulbarga constitutencies respectively.
Other noted politicians in the contest are H T Sangliana, former Bangalore police commissioner and sitting MP from Bangalore North, who has switched over from BJP to Congress, D B Chandre Gowda, who has switched over from Congress to BJP, Tejaswini Gowda, who defeated H D Deve Gowda in 2004 from Kanakapura constituency, which is now renamed as Bangalore Rural and Ambareesh, actor-turned-politician from Congress contesting from Mandya.
Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra is contesting against the sitting MP, S Bangarappa, who has once again switched over to Congress from Samajawadi Party.
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Notable names among the independents are Capt. G R Gopinath, who became a household name for his low-cost airline venture, Air Deccan (now acquired by Kingfisher Airlines). Some of the key LS constituencies in the state are Bangalore South, Bangalore North, Bangalore Rural, Hassan, Mandya, Shimoga, Udupi-Chikmagalur, Chikkaballapur, Kolar, Bellary, Gulbarga, and Bidar. Among the parties, Janata Dal (Secular) is contesting in 23 constituencies, Congress and BJP are contesting in all 28 constituencies, while CPI and CPI-M are contesting in one constituency each.
In the first phase, the largest number of candidates contesting are from Bangalore Central (37) and in the second phase, Davanagere has the highest number at 28 contestants. Eighteen candidates are in the fray for a lone assembly constituency, Bidar, which is facing byelection. The byelection was necessitated after Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli quit the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest from Bidar Lok Sabha seat.
The Election Commission has so far seized cash amounting to Rs 10.05 crore and liquor worth Rs 1.69 crore and other goods worth Rs 2.23 crore and booked as many as 1,207 cases. Of this, 30 cases of illegal movement of cash, 1,126 cases of liquor and 51 cases of other goods have been registered, M N Vidyashankar, chief electoral officer, told reporters on Monday.
Out of these cases, Bellary has topped with 242 cases for seizure of Rs 9.86 crore, 198 cases in Gulbarga, 107 cases in Chamarajanagar, 93 cases in Belgaum and 79 cases in Raichur. The EC has booked 92 cases against BJP, 55 against Congress, 38 against JD(S), 8 against BSP and one case against NCP, while 173 cases are booked against others.
Regarding malpractices in voter list, the commission has received 653 cases, Vidyashankar added. In the first phase of polls, a total of 25.78 million voters are eligible to cast their votes, of which 13.21 million are men and 12.56 million are women. In the second phase, a total of 15.21 million voters are eligible to cast their votes, of which 7.6 million men and 7.5 million are women.