Bengaluru: 295 file papers for 15 seats – Nomination closes

Bengaluru: The battlelines are drawn for the December bypolls to 15 assembly constituencies in the state with 295 nominations submitted till Monday evening which was the last day for filing papers.

BJP’s Gopalaiah accompanied by Minister Suresh Kumar and party workers go in a procession to file his papers for Mahalakshmi Layout seat.

Almost all the candidates contesting from the two national parties filed their nomination papers on Monday which will be taken up for scrutiny on Tuesday. A clear picture will emerge after the last date for withdrawal of nominations which is Friday.

The BJP fielded 13 of the 17 disqualified MLAs in the seats held by them while changing the candidates for Ranebennur and Shivajinagar where it did not field the winners last time, R. Shankar and Roshan Baig. For Shivajinagar, the party decided to field M. Sharavana while in Ranebennur it will be Arun Kumar Guttur. Only 15 seats are going to the bypolls with polls in two seats held by the disqualified MLAs-RR Nagar and Maski-not announced due to legal issues.

The big show was in Gokak where disqualified MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, the mastermind of the rebellion which unseated the Kumaraswamy government, filing his nomination accompanied by thousands of his supporters. The other BJP candidates to file their papers were K. Gopalaiah (Mahalaxmi Layout), A.H. Vishwanath (Hunsur), M.T.B. Nagaraj (Hosakote), S.T. Somashekhar (Yashwanthpur) and Bhairati Basavaraj (KR Puram).

Prominent among Congress candidates who filed their papers on Monday were Rizwan Arshad (Shivajinagar), K.B. Koliwad (Ranebennur) and M. Nagaraj (Yeshwanthpur). Interestingly, Satish Jarkiholi too filed his nomination along with his younger brother and the official Congress candidate Lakhan from Gokak while in Hirekerur, B.C. Patil filed his papers as the BJP candidate and also fielded his daughter Srushti Patil as a dummy candidate as a precautionary measure.