Karnataka Bypoll: BJP Denies Ticket To Congress Rebel Roshan Baig, Fields Sharavana From Shivajinagar

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced M Sharavana as its candidate for bypoll to Shivajinagar Assembly Constituency, denying ticket to R Roshan Baig, a disqualified Congress. Baig has not been even inducted into the party on Thursday. BJP sources cited ‘reservations’ expressed by party leadership over Baig, who is facing inquiry in the IMA ponzi scam, among the reasons for his non-induction. Interestingly Baig, a seven-time legislator, had claimed that he will be joining BJP along with the other legislators.

Earlier, the BJP nominated 13 Congress and JDS MLAs, who were disqualified ahead of a trust vote, as its candidates for the assembly bypolls in Karnataka.

Karnataka: BJP has announced M. Sharavana as its candidate for by-poll to Shivajinagar Assembly Constituency. pic.twitter.com/wEfBZaowj3

— ANI (@ANI) November 14, 2019

Fifteen out of the 17 constituencies represented by these MLAs will be going for bypolls, while by-elections to Maski and RR Nagar constituencies have been withheld as separate cases with regard to them, are pending before the high court. Sixteen out of the 17 disqualified Congress-JD(S) legislators on Thursday joined the BJP in Bangaluru in the presence of Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa and its state unit chief Nalin Kumar Kateel and National General Secretary in charge of the state P Muralidhar Rao.

All the 13 disqualified MLAs have been repeated from their respective seats. The disqualified Congress MLAs who have been given ticket by the BJP are: Mahesh Kumatalli (Athani), Shrimanthagouda Patil (Kagwad), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Shivram Hebbar (Yellapur), B C Patil (Hirekerur), Anand Singh (Vijayanagara), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura), Byrati Basavaraj (K R Puram), ST Somashekar (Yeshwanthpur) and MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote).

JDS members who have been given ticket by the BJP are: K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), AH Vishwanath (Hunsur) and KC Narayana Gowda (Krishnarajpet).