On May 19, two Assembly seats in Karnataka (Chincholi and Kundagol) will go to by-polls, necessitated by Umesh Jadhav quitting the Congress and sitting Congress MLA CS Shivalli passing away. The BJP is betting its money on SI Chikkanagoudar from Kundalgod and either Ramachandra or Avinash (Umesh Jadhav’s brother and son respectively) for Chincholi
Bengaluru: The two phases of Lok Sabha polls might have ended in Karnataka, but the political heat and dust refuse to settle.
Two Assembly constituencies in Karnataka, Chincholi and Kundagol will be go to by-polls on May 19, owing to the fact that Umesh Jadhav tergiversated to the BJP and contested Lok Sabha polls from Kalaburagi, against Mallikarjun Kharge, and CS Shivalli, a Congress MLA passed away last month.
As the fight for tickets reached the zenith, the BJP core committee, headed by BS Yeddyurappa zeroed in on a few names. From Chincholi, it will be either Jadhav’s brother Ramachandra or his son Avinash. And from Kundagol, it is SI Chikkanagoudar, who is considered close to Yeddyurappa. In fact, he even filed his nomination earlier on Friday.
Interestingly, another BJP leader Sunil Vallyapure is also fancying his chances from Chincholi. And when it comes to Kundagol, Chikkanagoudar lost to Shivalli by a slender margin of around 650 votes.
But BJP sources say that the state leaders will favour Jadhav’s recommendations as he quit the Congress and joined the BJP, and he has taken a big risk by doing so.
But when it comes to Chikkanagoudar, as soon as he filed his nomination, a rebellion has started in Kundagol as MR Patil, another ticket aspirant from the BJP feels betrayed by the state BJP leadership for not giving him the ticket. Moreover, Patil’s camp feels that Chikkanagoudar is not a strong candidate and might end up losing.
Karnataka BJP president Yeddyurappa has also appointed senior leaders Jagadish Shettar, KS Eshwarappa, Govind Karjol, Prahlad Joshi as supervisors for Kundagol, while V Somanna, Lakshman Savadi, Malkayya Guttedar and Baburao Chinchansur will oversee electoral prospects for Chincholi.
The ultimate call will be taken by the BJP central leadership in Delhi. The announcement is likely to be made by Saturday.
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