Bengaluru: Wary of growing resentment among party workers about the decision to strike a seat-sharing pact with JD(S), leaders of the state Congress on Thursday commenced the process of selection of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections as part of an effort to pressure top central leaders of the party against yielding to the demand of the coalition partner to walk away with a lion’s share of constituencies in the Old Mysuru region.
The party leaders took the decision to short list candidates in seats barring the nine likely to be allocated to JD(S) as party workers are miffed with them for agreeing to give almost all seats in Old Mysuru region to the coalition partner, a move which would weaken the support base of the party, and in some seats help BJP emerge stronger at its cost.
The meeting discussed about four to five aspirants in each constituency but decided to submit these names to the screening committee scheduled to meet in Delhi on March 11. Minority community leaders R Roshan Baig and K Rehman Khan demanded that at least three seats to candidates from their community.
For Bidar, party general secretary K.C. Venugopal reportedly favoured Eshwar Khandre. The leaders also weighed the pros and cons of fielding legislators as candidates, but decided to leave the decision to party president Rahul Gandhi.
The names shortlisted are: Bidar – Eshwar Khandre, C.M. Ibrahim, Vijay Singh; Bagalakote – Bayakka Meti, Prakash Rathod, Kantha Nayak and Shivaraj Thangadagi; Koppal – Basanagouda Badarli, Basavaraj K. Hitnal, Virupakshappa and Basavaraj Rayareddy; Belagavi – Anjali Nimbalkar, Channaraj Hebbalkar, Nagaraj Yadav, Ramesh Jarkiholi and Vivekrao Patil; Dharwad – Vinay Kulkarni, Shakhir Sanadi and Veeranna Mattikatti; Haveri – Basavaraj Shivannavar, D.R. Patil and Salim Ahmed; Davanagere – S.S. Mallikarjuna; Uttara Kannada – Prashant Deshpande, Nivedith Alva and Bheemanna Naik; Udupi-Chikkamagaluru–Arati Krishna, Pramod Madhwaraj and B.K. Hariprasad; Mangaluru – Ramanath Rai, Ivan D’Souza, Moiuddin Bava, Bengaluru Central – Rizwan Arshad, B.K. Hariprasad, Roshan Baig and H.T. Sangliana; Bengaluru North – C. Narayana Swamy, B.L. Shankar, B.V. Srinivas; Mysuru – Vijay Shankar and Sooraj Hegde, grandson of D. Devaraj Urs.
