Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Mar 24: The Congress released the list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Karnataka and other states late night on Saturday March 23.
As expected, Mithun Rai has been chosen as the candidate from Dakshina Kannada constituency. His prime rival will be BJP's sitting MP Nalin Kumar Kateel.
Over the past few days, there was a lot of speculation over who would get the Congress ticket from Dakshina Kannada. There were a number of aspirants like former minster Ramanath Rai and former MLA Vinaykumar Sorake, but the high command decided to go for a fresh face who is popular among the youth. Mithun Rai is currently the president of Youth Congress in Dakshina Kannada. In fact, Daijiworld had been the first to report about Mithun's candidature.
Former chief minister Dr M Veerappa Moily has been given the ticket from Chikkaballapur again. K H Muniyappa will contest from Kolar, while D K Suresh will be contesting from Bengaluru rural.
Leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge will contest from Kalaburagi.
Out of a total of 28 seats in Karnataka, Congress will be contesting from 20 seats and JD(S) from 8, as part of the pre-poll alliance.
Other names in the list include:
Chikkodi - Prakash Hukkeri
Belagavi - Virupakshi S Sadhunnavar
Bagalkot - Veena Kashappanavar
Raichur - B V Nayak
Bidar - Eshwar Khandre
Koppal - Rajashekar Hitnal
Ballari - U S Ugrappa
Haveri - D R Patil
Davangere - Shamanur Shivashankarappa
Chitradurga - B N Chandrappa
Mysuru - Vijayshankar
Chamarajanagar - Dhruva Narayanana
Bengaluru central - Rizwan Arshad
The polling for the seven phase elections will begin from April 11 and the results will be declared on May 23. In Karnataka, the polling will be held on April 18 and 23.