Karnataka elections: Congress likely to release first list of candidates today; Siddaramaiah’s son, most sitting MLAs likely to get tickets

Congress is likely to release its first list of candidates for the Karnataka Assembly election on Tuesday, a day after the Congress screening committee met in New Delhi to finalise the party's candidates.

According to The Times of India, the first list will comprise about 70-80 candidates, including prominent faces in the party and a dozen of their relatives. Though the party is likely to field all sitting MLAs, sources said they may exclude 5-6 MLAs, including Manohar Tahsildar (Hangal), BB Chimmankatti (Badami) and S Jayanna (Kollegal). Those left out may have been excluded due to age-related health issues, a party source said.

The screening committee did not want to interfere with the party's dynasty politics. Some names on the list could include Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah’s son Yathindra, Shamanur Shivshankarappa’s son SS Mallikarjuna and HC Mahadevappa’s son Sunil Bose.

Representational image. Reuters

The Congress screening committee met in Delhi on Monday, the same day the BJP released its first list of 72 candidates for the Karnataka polls.

Names of candidates, including the sitting 122 legislators, who have no challengers in their constituencies have been cleared, a party source informed The New Indian Express. The report also mentioned that the screening committee on Monday cleared the names of ‘undisputed’ candidates for 130 constituencies.

"The screening committee is going through the applications to shortlist the candidates for the state Assembly elections. The list will be submitted to the party's Central Election Committee by Tuesday to finalise the names by 13 April," state party spokesman Ravi Gowda told IANS in Bengaluru.

Party President Rahul Gandhi had on 25 February set up a 43-member state election committee headed by Parameshwara to recommend names to the central committee for the selection of the candidates. The party's state leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Veerappa Moily, SR Patil, KJ George, DK Shivakumar, Ramalinga Reddy and Dinesh Gundu Rao have participated in the meeting, which will resume on Tuesday.

The screening committee is headed by senior leader Madhusudan Mistry, with party MPs Tamradhwaj Sahu and Gaurav Gogoi as its members.

General Secretary and state in-charge KC Venugopal is an ex-officio member of the committee along with state unit president G Parameshwara and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

"The party's central election committee will meet on Wednesday and Thursday too to finalise all the 224 candidates," added Gowda.

With inputs from agencies

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