Bengaluru: Eyeing 22 of the total 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to field all its 16 incumbent MPs, including Pratap Simha, D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Shobha Karandlaje, in the State in the elections while the process of selection of candidates for the remaining 12 constituencies is in progress.

Announcing this at a press conference here yesterday, BJP State President B.S. Yeddyurappa said that the party’s State unit’s Core Committee would meet in Bengaluru on Friday to shortlist the probable candidates. He would visit New Delhi on Saturday to get clearance from the Central Election Committee for the first list of candidates with 20 to 22 names, he said.

Yeddyurappa indicated that Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, wife of the former Union Minister late H.N. Ananth Kumar, would be fielded from Bengaluru South that was represented by her husband. “Most probably, she will be the candidate for Bengaluru South. However, it is the Central leadership which would decide the issue,” he said.

Refusing to comment on dynasty politics, Yeddyurappa, when asked again, said that there should be some limit to even family politics. He was indirectly referring to former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda’s grandsons contesting polls from Hassan (Prajwal Revanna) and Mandya (Nikhil Kumaraswamy).

Yeddyurappa said the BJP was mainly banking on the performance of the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre and its own erstwhile Government in Karnataka besides the failures of the Coalition Government here to improve its poll performance in Karnataka.

Lashing out at the JD(S)-Congress Coalition Government in Karnataka, he said that the Government had failed to respond to the problems of people, especially in drought-hit areas. He also maintained that people were fed up with the Coalition Government owing to lack of coordination among the allies.