The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Krishna Byre Gowda, Alva, Moily in Congress second list

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Wednesday, Apr 01, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Krishna Byre Gowda, Alva, Moily in Congress second list

Special Correspondent

Jayaprakash Hegde and K. Dhruvanarayan get the party ticket

Congress, BJP yet to name candidate for Mandya
M.R. Seetharam loses out to Moily in Chickaballapur

BANGALORE: The Congress high command has picked the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress Committee president and Byatarayanapura MLA, Krishna Byre Gowda, to contest from the Bangalore South Lok Sabha Constituency.

He will face the former Union Minister Ananth Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mr. Ananth Kumar, who filed his nomination papers on Monday, has won the seat four times in a row.

While the Congress high command announced a list of 22 candidates on Saturday, five more —M. Veerappa Moily (Chickaballapur), K. Jayaprakash Hegde (Udupi-Chikmagalur), Margaret Alva (Uttara Kannada) and K. Dhruvanarayan (Chamarajanagar) were announced on Tuesday.

Of the 28 constituencies in the State, the Congress is yet to announce the candidate for Mandya. Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and actor M.H. Ambareesh is the MP.

The BJP has announced candidates for 24 of the 28 seats while the Janata Dal (Secular) has announced candidates for 18 seats. It is evident that the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) have refrained from announcing the full list until the Congress announces its candidates.

For Chickaballapur, Mr. Moily has been preferred over Malleswaram MLA M.R. Seetharam. Mr. Seetharam had sought to contest from Chickaballapur as it had a chunk of Balija Naidu voters, the community to which he belongs. Chickaballapur is a new pasture for Mr. Moily had lost the last two general elections (1999 and 2004) from Mangalore and Chikmagalur respectively.

The Congress high command has denied nomination to B. Shivanna for the Chamarajanagar seat. Mr. Shivanna had crossed over to the Congress from the Janata Dal (Secular) during the crucial confidence vote in the Lok Sabha over the nuclear deal. The party has fielded Chamarajanagar MLA K. Dhruvanarayan. In 2004 Legislative Assembly elections, he had defeated A.R. Krishnamurthy of the Janata Dal (Secular) by a single vote. A.R. Krishnamurthy is the BJP candidate from Chamarajanagar. Of the three former MPs of the BJP — Manjunath Kunnur (Dharwad), H.T. Sangliana (Bangalore Central) and Manorama Madhwaraj (Udupi) — who joined the Congress after the trust vote, the first two have been given the ticket while Mr. Hegde has been fielded from Udupi-Chikmagalur. Sources in the Congress told The Hindu that the high command is yet to finalise the candidate for the Mandya seat.

The former Chief Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) State unit president, H.D. Kumaraswamy, had offered him the Bangalore South seat which has now been given to K.E. Radhakrishna by that party. The former Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy is the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate from Mandya. The BJP has delayed announcement of its candidate for Mandya seat.

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