B.Y. Vijayendra to get ticket for LC seat

Bengaluru: The BJP State Committee comprising top leaders met at the State party headquarters ‘Jagannath Bhavan’ here on Saturday to finalise the names of party candidates for the Rajya Sabha (RS) and Legislative Council (LC) seats, the polls for which are scheduled to take place next month.

The Biennial polls will be held for seven LC seats from the Assembly and four seats to the RS, for which the BJP proposes to field its candidates for four LC seats and two RS seats.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, BJP Karnataka in-Charge Arun Singh, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, State BJP Chief Nalin Kumar Kateel, former Chief Ministers B.S. Yediyurappa and Jagadish Shettar, National General Secretary C.T. Ravi, Ministers R. Ashoka, Govind Karjol, Dr. C.N. Ashwathnarayan and B. Sriramulu, senior leader and former Minister K.S. Eshwarappa and other top party leaders took part in the meeting.

The meeting decided to recommend only the name of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for one RS seat and four others for the second RS seat, which the party has decided to  contest. The four candidates to be recommended to the Party’s Central Election Committee are as follows: Sitting MP K.C. Ramamurthy, a former IPS officer, former MLC Lehar Singh Siroya, State BJP Vice-President Nirmal Kumar Surana and Businessman Prakash Shetty.

As far as the LC polls are concerned, the BJP has planned to contest for four of the seven seats that are going to the polls.

The meeting decided to recommend names of five candidates for each of the four seats, thus taking the total recommendation to 20.

Former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s son B.Y. Vijayendra, who is also one of the State BJP Vice-Presidents, is one among the prominent candidates for the LC seat.

The other candidates recommended include sitting MLC and former Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi, State BJP Vice-Presidents Nirmal Kumar Surana of Bengaluru and M. Rajendra of Mysuru, former MLCs Siddaraju of Mysuru, Mahesh Tenginakai of Dharwad and  M.B. Bhanuprakash of Shivamogga, party leader from Shivamogga Girish Patel, State BJP SC Morcha President Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, Mahila Morcha leader Geetha Vivekananda, Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, a top leader from Bengaluru and wife of late Union Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar and Bharathi Magdum, among others. By choosing candidates from different categories, the BJP hopes to maintain a perfect balance of caste and regional representation in the LC, keeping in mind that the State would be going to the Assembly polls in a year.