New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday announced its first list of candidates from Karnataka for the Lok Sabha elections. As expected, of the 21 names announced, 14 sitting MPs were nominated once again from their respective constituencies. The party has to announce names for 8 more seats.

This includes five-time MP Anantkumar Hegde who is seeking re-election from the Uttara Kannada constituency. Minister of Statistics and Fertilizers D.V. Sadananda Gowda will also re-contest from Bangalore North and P.C. Mohan from Bangalore Central. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel will also seek re-election for the third time.

Pratap Simha will contest again from Mysuru-Kodagu, a seat that he won last time. Udupi-Chikkamagalur MP and former Minister Shobha Karandlaje will also re-contest.  In north Karnataka, Parvatagouda C. Gaddigoudar, Ramesh Chandappa and Suresh Channabasappa have got the assent once more to contest from Bagalkot, Bijapur and Belgaum seats.

Umesh Jadhav and A. Manju, leaders who defected from the Congress recently, have got their candidature from Kalaburagi and Hassan respectively. B.Y. Raghavendra who won the recent by-polls in Shivamogga will also get to re-contest from the same seat held by his father and BJP State President B.S. Yeddyurappa. B.N. Bachchegowda will contest from Chikkaballapura while V. Sreenivasa Prasad will seek election from Chamarajanagar.

Interestingly, the party has not yet named a candidate from the Mandya constituency. The state unit of the party had recommended the party’s central leadership to not contest the elections from Mandya. Mandya is seeing a high profile fight between Nikhil Gowda, son of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Sumalatha, wife of former Congress leader Ambarish who is contesting as an independent.  A few BJP leaders want the party to support Sumalatha. The BJP is also trying to break into the bastions of the JD(S)-Congress alliance by fielding Congress rebel A. Manju in Hassan. He will contest against Prajwal Revanna, another grandson of H.D. Deve Gowda.

NATIONAL SCENE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the Parliamentary seat he retained after winning two seats in the 2014 election. BJP president Amit Shah will fight from Gandhinagar in his home town Gujarat a seat where BJP veteran L.K. Advani is the sitting lawmaker. Advani was not on the first list of candidates.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari will contest from Lucknow and Nagpur respectively. Both leaders had won from these seats in the last general election. Union minister Smriti Irani will take on Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the second time, as she contests from Amethi.