Shimoga trouble: Congress’ Bhandary files sans ‘B’ form!

Shimoga: Congress candidate for the Shimoga Lok Sabha constituency Manjunath Bhandary filed his nomination papers at the Deputy Commissioner’s office here on Wednesday.

But considering the non-submission of the B-form while submitting nominations by Mr Bhandary, the Congress party leadership seems to have adopted ‘wait and watch’ tactics in view of the opposiiton to the latter’s candidature by former minister Kumar Bangarappa.

According to Mr Bhandary on this point, “there is provision to submit the B-form till March 27 (on the day of scrutiny of nominations).

According to official sources, it is the procedure to submit the B-form while filing nominations. But this procedure has not been followed by the Congress several times.

On other hand, Mr Kumar is pressing the high command for the party ticket to contest from Shimoga. With Mrs Geetha Shivarajkumar contesting from the same family on a JD(S) ticket, it is said that the Congress after making shrewd calculations, may not agree to Mr Kumar’s request to replace Mr Bhandary.

To make sure that it has some breathing time and to rule out the possibility of Mr Kumar turning a rebel candidate, the Congress has put off the submission of the B-form to the last minute.

Meanwhile, speaking to Deccan Chronicle over phone from Bengaluru, Mr Kumar Bangarappa said, “I will wait till March 26 before making a decision. I have discussed with party leaders including KPCC President G.Parameshwar to approve my candidature rather than give importance to an outsider (Mr Bhandary). Since the entire community is supporting me, I will wait till the last moment.”