Karnataka Assembly polls: Congress releases second list of 42 candidates

The Congress on Thursday (April 6) released the second list of 42 candidates for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections.

Former ministers including Baburao Chinchansur (Gurmitkal), Iqbal Ansari (Gangawati), Anjaneya H (Holakere-SC) and Kimmane Rathnakar (Tirthahalli) figure in the list released by Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik.

Also read: Karnataka polls: Congress’ first list of candidates likely on March 17

Vijay Dharam Singh, son of former chief minister Dharam Singh has also been fielded from the Basavakalyan constituency.

Besides fielding Anjaneya from the scheduled caste constituency of Holakere, the Congress has given tickets to Vitthal Katakadhond for Nagthan, and to AR Krishna Murthy for Kollegal.

Dr Srinivas NT and NY Gopalakrishna – who recently left BJP for Congress – have been fielded from the Kudligi and Molakalmuru constituencies respectively, reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates.

There are no women candidates in the second list.

The Congress has marked the Melukote assembly constituency for Darshan Puttannaiah of the Sarvodaya Karnataka Party.

The party It has so far finalised 142 candidates for the polls. The first list of 100 candidates was released earlier.

The candidates were finalised at a meeting of the Central Election Committee headed by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday.

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and top party leaders from Karnataka, including former chief minister Siddaramaiah, state chief DK Shivakumar and All India Congress Committee in-charge for the state, Randeep Surjewala, were present at the meeting.

The elections to the 224-member assembly will be held on May 10 and results will be declared on May 13.

The Congress is seeking to wrest power from the BJP in Karnataka, the only southern state where the saffron party is in power.