Congress fields B.K. Hariprasad from Bangalore South

Senior Congress leader B.K. Hariprasad has been named the party candidate from the high-profile Bangalore South constituency.

The name of Hariprasad, currently a Rajya Sabha member, was among the 10 candidates in various states released on Sunday after a meeting of the Central Election Committee.

The party on late Sunday night named candidates for 18 of the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies it is contesting in the state under a seat-sharing agreement with its ruling ally Janatal Dal-Secular (JD-S), which will contest the remaining eight seats. The candidates for Bangalore North and South were not named.

Late Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister H.N. Ananth Kumar was the sitting MP from the prestigious Bangalore South constituency for a record six terms since 1996.

In the 2014 general elections, he had defeated Congress star candidate and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who entered the political arena after resigning as Chairman of the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues the Aadhaar card to citizens across the country.

Though the BJP is yet to name its candidate from the seat, Kumar's widow Tejaswini has been tipped to enter the fray in a bid to retain the seat, riding on the sympathy wave for her husband and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Tejaswini has agreed to contest from Bangalore South to carry on the legacy of her husband who was a popular leader in the constituency," a BJP official told IANS.

Though there were rumours that Modi may contest from the same constituency, there was no confirmation from the party's high command.

Modi has already been named to re-contest from the Varanasi parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh.

--IANS

fb/vd