By Shaik Zakeer Hussain, TwoCircles.net,
Bengaluru: After much hue and cry over it, the three major political parties in Karnataka have finally announced the names of candidates, for the upcoming Assembly elections to be held on May 5.
The ruling BJP announced its first list of 140 names of the 225-member assembly seats, out of which 80 are sitting MLAs.
Jagadish Shettar, the current Chief Minister of the state will contest from Hubli-Dharwad-Central area, while the state BJP President K. S. Eshwarappa will stand against former CM and KJP President B. S. Yeddyurappa from Shimoga.
The list does not have the names of MLAs such as Katta Subramanya Naidu, S. N. Krishnaiah Setty and Y. Sampangi who are currently facing criminal inquiries. The name of Udupi MLA Raghupati Bhat, who was recently involved in a sleaze scandal, is also left out.
No Muslim names are to be found in the first list.
The Congress on the other hand, has state party Chief G. Parameshwara, who will contest from Koratagere and Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah from Varuna.
14 Muslim candidates have found themselves in the Congress list. They are: Roshan Baig (Shivajinagar), Sadat Ali Khan (Chanapatna), Rahim Khan (Bidar), Syed Yasin (Raichur), Tanver Sait (Narasimharaj), U.T Khader (Ullal), N.A Harris (Shanthinagar), Fairoz Nuruddin Saith (Belgaum Uttar), D.B Inamdar (Kittur), Qamarul Islam (Gulbarga Uttar), Sayed Azeempur Khadri (Shiggaon), Abdul Wahab H (Vijayanagar), Rafeeq Ahmed S (Tumkur City) and Naseer Ahmed (Kolar).
Congress is likely to declare its second list after party Chief Sonia Gandhi returns from foreign tour next week.
The JD (S) list contains 10 Muslim candidates, 4 of which will contest from Bengaluru itself.