New Delhi: After holding a series of meetings, the Congress on Thursday released its third list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, wherein it fielded top leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani from Gulbarga and Karnataka minister Satish Jarkiholi’s daughter Priyanka Jarkiholi from Chikkodi.
Besides, it fielded Vinod Asooti from Dharwad, M Rajeev Gowda from Bangalore North, Sowmya Reddy from Bangalore South and Mansoor Ali Khan from Bangalore Central.
The grand old party has fielded Ramalinga Reddy's daughter Sowmya Reddy from Bangalore South, Shivanand Patil's daughter Samyukta S Patil (Bagalkot), Laxmi Hebbalkar's son Mrinal Ravindra Hebbalkar (Belgaum) and Eshwar Khandre's son Sagar Khandre (Bidar) will be contesting in the polls. Mansoor Ali Khan, son of former Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha K Rahman Khan and Prabha Mallikarjun, wife of Minister S S Mallikarjun and daughter-in-law of veteran party leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa, are the party's nominees from Bangalore Central and Davangere, respectively.
Doddamani fielded from Gulbarga
In Gulbarga (Kalaburagi), Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani will be in the fray. Kharge had won the seat in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections but lost in 2019. Prof M V Rajeev Gowda, the Vice-Chairman of Karnataka State Policy and Planning Commission, will take on BJP's incumbent MP Tejasvi Surya in Bangalore South.
The other candidates who figure in the second list are M Laxman (Mysore), Vinod Asooti (Dharwad), G Kumar Naik (Raichur), Padmaraj (Dakshina Kannada), Jayaprakash Hegde (Udupi-Chikmagalur), K Rajashekar Basavaraj Hitnal (Koppal), Anjali Nimbalkar (Uttara Kannada), and B N Chandrappa (Chitradurga). The Congress released its first list of seven candidates in Karnataka on March 8.
The BJP swept the 2019 general elections in Karnataka, winning 25 out of the 28 seats in the state, while an independent candidate backed by the party also won. The Congress and JD(S), which fought the elections together, secured just one seat each. The BJP announced candidates for 20 seats in the state last week. Polling will be held in two phases in Karnataka on April 26 and May 7.
