Bypoll: Congress banks on sympathy wave, picks Kusuma for Kundgol
The names of the candidates have been forwarded to the Congress central election committee which will make the final announcement.
Bengaluru: The Congress has tentatively chosen its candidates for Kundgol and Chincholi Assembly constituencies which go to polls on May 19.
At a meeting chaired by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President Dinesh Gundurao on Thursday, the party picked Ms Kusuma Shivalli, widow of former municipal administration minister C.S. Shivalli, who died last month, for the Kundgol bypoll hoping to make the best of the sympathy factor.
For Chincholi, the party has proposed two names-former minister K.B. Shanappa who was in the BJP till recently, and Subhash Rathod. The Chincholi bypoll was necessitated after Dr Umesh Jadhav resigned from the state Assembly and the Congress to join the BJP and contest the Lok Sabha poll from Kalaburagi on a BJP ticket.
The names of the candidates have been forwarded to the Congress central election committee which will make the final announcement.
Meanwhile, the JD(S) has decided not to field its candidates in both constituencies and instead support Congress candidates. JD(S) supremo and former PM, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda has already made an announcement to this effect.
With this, the poll alliance between the Congress and JD(S) has been extended to the two by-polls. The JD(S) had done this two years ago by not fielding its candiates in the Gundlupet and Nanjangud assembly bypolls claiming that it did not have financial resources to fight the elections.