Congress picks IIM-B don for Rajya Sabha seat

The Congress Monday nominated M.V. Rajeev Gowda, a 50-year-old professor at the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, to contest in the Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka.

"The high command preferred to nominate Gowda over former external affairs minister and outgoing lawmaker S.M. Krishna along with the re-nomination of party general secretary B.K. Hariprasad for the upper house elections from the state," the party's state unit president G. Parameshwar told reporters here.

Both Gowda and Hariprasad, who also hails from the state, filed nominations at Vidhana Soudha here. Four seats from Karnataka will vote June 19.

Gowda, son of former assembly speaker M.V. Venkatappa, is also a director in the central board of the Reserve Bank of India.

The 83-year-old Krishna, who retires from the upper house June 25, was chief minister from 1999 to 2004. He was later governor of Maharashtra.

Gowda was one of the contestants in the party's election primary in March to select its candidate from the Bangalore North constituency in the Lok Sabha polls. But he lost to C. Narayan Swamy.

With 121 lawmakers in the 225-member assembly, the ruling Congress can comfortably ensure the victory of Gowda and Hariprasad, as they require a minimum of 45 votes each to make it to the upper house.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has 43 lawmakers in the assembly, has re-nominated outgoing lawmaker Prabhakar Kore.

The party will seek additional two votes from other lawmakers representing regional parties and independents to again ensure Kore's victory.

The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) has fielded Kupendra Reddy, a businessman from Bangalore, who was formerly with the Congress and who contested in the 2008 assembly elections from Bommanahalli constituency in the city.

As the JD-S has only 40 lawmakers in the assembly, Reddy will have to seek additional five votes from lawmakers of other parties to win the contest.