Siddaramaiah's stamp writ large on candidates' list for Council poll

Bengaluru: Congress legislature party leader, Siddaramaiah's stamp was writ large on the candidates list for the biennial Legislative Council elections scheduled to be held on June 8. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has given the green signal to the list which has four candidates- former Union minister, C.M. Ibrahim, K. Govindaraju, Arvind Kumar S. Arali and K. Harish Kumar. "Mr Kumar and Mr Arali are fresh faces in the list, Mr Kumar is the Dakshina Kannada district Congress committee president and Mr Arali is Bidar district Congress general secretary. Mr Ibrahim and Mr Govindraju were picked solely due to Siddaramaiah's intervention," a senior leader who was lobbying for the seat told this newspaper. According to the source, the BJP with their present strength can win five seats, followed by Congress (4) while the JD(S) can win two seats. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader rued that central leaders were making a grave mistake by depending only on Mr Siddaramaiah's choice of candidates. The source added there was nothing great about Siddaramaiah's  candidates as  one (Govindaraju) was already embroiled in "Bribegate" while Mr Ibrahim was a spent force. "The party could have  picked leaders from the grassroot lelvel like Mr Kumar and Mr Arali. As for Mr Govindraju and Mr Ibrahim, their contribution to the party's growth is zero in the last four years," the source asserted.