Bengaluru, Jun 20 (IANS): With nominations of seven candidates in the fray for the June 29 biennial elections to as many Karnataka Legislative Council seats found valid after scrutiny, they are set to be declared elected unopposed, an official said on Friday.
"Of the 9 nominations filed on Thursday, two by Independents were rejected by Returning Officer M.K. Vishalakshi during scrutiny for want of at least 10 sponsoring legislators," a poll official told IANS.
The Independents were P.C. Krishnegowda and Mandikkal Nagaraja, who is said to be close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
(Clockwise): Pratap Simha Nayak, R Shankar, MTB Nagaraj, Sunil Valyapure, Govindraju, Naseer Ahmed and B K Hariprasad
Of the 7 candidates now in fray, 4 are from the BJP, 2 from the opposition Congress and 1 from regional outfit Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).
Of the 7 outgoing members 5 are from the Congress and one each from the JD-S and an Independent.
The Congress nominated its outgoing Rajya Sabha member B.K. Hariprasad and sitting MLC Naseer Ahmed for 2 seats, as it has only 68 legislators in the 225-member Assembly and both need 28 votes each to win the bypolls.
With 116 legislators, the BJP's four candidates -- M.T.B. Nagaraj, R. Shankar, Sunil Valyapure and Pratap Simha Nayak will also get elected unopposed.
Govindraju of the JD-S, which has 34 MLCs, will also win unopposed.
"If all the 7 remaining candidates will be declared elected unopposed on June 22 -- the last date for withdrawal of nominations. Voting on June 29 is now redundant," said the official.
In the biennial elections to 4 Rajya Sabha seats from the state, 2 from the BJP and one each from the Congress and the JD-S were declared unopposed on June 12 -- the last day for withdrawal of nominations, thereby averting the voting on June 19.
Nagaraj, a former Congress rebel, who also lost in the Assembly by-election from Hoskote in Bengaluru Rural district on a BJP ticket, was the state Housing Minister in the 14-month-old JD-S-Congress coalition government, which fell on July 23, 2019 after 17 of their rebels resigned then.
Shankar, who was an Independent and a Minister in the former coalition government, was not given the BJP ticket to contest in the December Assembly bypolls though he too resigned from the Ranebennur seat in Haveri district, about 340km northwest of Bengaluru, along with former Congress and JD-S rebels.
Valyapure is the party's grass-roots leader from Chincholi in Gulbarga district in the state's northern region, about 586km from Bengaluru.
Valyapure extensively campaigned in the May 2019 general elections and ensured the victory of BJP candidate Umesh Yadav from the Gulbarga reserved Lok Sabha seat, defeating Congress senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge.
Nayak is also the party's grass-roots cadre who rose from the ranks to become its Dakshina Kannada district president in the state's coastal region.
Besides Ahmed, the 4 outgoing Congress members are Jayamma, M. C. Venugopal, N S Bose Raju and H M Revanna. The term of T.A. Sharavana of the JD-S and Independent D.U. Mallikarjuna also ends on June 30.
In the 75-member Council, the opposition Congress has 37 members, BJP 19, JD-S 16, two Independents and one Chairman.