Dinesh Gundurao, Krishna Byregowda asked to fight Lok Sabha election, decline

Bengaluru: Notwithstanding its policy decision not to field any of its sitting MLAs in the LS polls, the Congress party central leadership seem to be coaxing its senior leaders who are MLAs, to contest the LS polls.

As part of this strategy, the party seem to be considering the names of KPCC president, Dinesh Gundurao from Bengaluru South, RDPR minister, Krishna Byregowda from Bengaluru North and Eshwar Khandre from Bidar constituencies. The party is also considering the name of former Council chairman B.L. Shankar for Bengaluru North besides Mr Byregowda.

In 1996 when H.D.Deve Gowda became Prime Minister, the then Janata Dal did a similar experiment. It fielded several ministers in the Deve Gowda cabinet who successfully won the elections and the party bagged 16 seats. The JD (S) supremo, H.D. Deve Gowda who has taken on himself the task of securing not less than 20 seats from Karnataka this time, reportedly mooted the idea of fielding sitting MLAs in the LS polls.

Though Mr Gundurao and Mr Byregowda were not keen and have already conveyed their feeling to central leaders, the national party may consider their names considering the importance it gives to winning more seats from Karnataka with the help of the coalition partner JD(S).

Besides this, the party seem to have given permission to Pramod Madhwaraj to contest the LS polls from Udupi-Chikkamagaluru on a JD (S) ticket.