Legislative Council polls: 12 file nominations

Four each from Congress, JD(S), BJP in fray

As many as 12 candidates on Monday filed their nomination papers for the elections to 11 vacancies in the Legislative Council from the Legislative Assembly segment.

Four candidates from each of the three parties "" Congress, Janata Dal (S) and BJP "" filed their nominations. The Congress candidates are former minister Motamma, former council chairman V R Sudarshan, K C Kondaiah and Khaji Arshad Ali.

The JD(S) candidates are former minister Amarnath Shetty, Abdul Azeem, Neeravari and Chikkamadu. The BJP candidates are Vimala Gowda, D S Veeraiah, Tontadarya and Janardhan Reddy.

The scrutiny of the nominations will take place on May 23. The last date for the withdrawal of the nominations is May 25. If necessary, elections will be conducted on June 1.

The breakaway JD(S) faction led by former chief minister Siddaramaiah was unsuccessful in fielding any candidate for the polls.

The faction had announced the candidature of former Union minister C M Ibrahim last week. However, he did not file his nomination papers after the faction fell short of the required support from other parties.

The BJP and JD(S) are in a position to elect all their candidates. However, the Congress, which has fielded four candidates, can elect only three of them.

The election of the fourth candidate is a gamble and the party is hoping for support from the independents and the breakaway faction of the JD(S).

On Sunday, Karnataka governor T N Chaturvedi approved the nomination of former JD(S) state president N Thippanna, JD(S) spokesperson Y S V Datta and Kannada actor Srinath to the legislative council.

The three vacancies for which nominations had to be made had not been filled for the last six months. Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday had submitted the nominations to the governor.