BENGALURU: BJP is likely to delay announcing its candidates for seven legislative council seats (assembly quota) and four Rajya Sabha seats by two or three days.
This is because the party’s central election committee and Parliament board meetings, scheduled for Thursday, were postponed owing to the three-day conclave of party’s office bearers from across the country in Jaipur, Rajasthan. BJP national president JP Nadda and other senior functionaries were in Jaipur.
The meeting is now likely to be held on May 22, a senior BJP functionary said. While the last date for filing nominations for council polls is May 24, nominations for Rajya Sabha seats end on May 31. The elections to the council will be held on June 3 and Rajya Sabha on June 10.
The state BJP unit has already recommended over a dozen names to the central election panel for the seven council seats. They include BY Vijayendra, state BJP vicepresident and former chief minister BS Yediyurappa’s son.
Other names that have been shortlisted include former deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi, party vicepresidents M Rajendra and Nirmal Kumar Surana, BJP general secretary Mahesh Tenginkai, BJP SC Morcha president C Narayanaswamy, former MLCs MB Bhanuprakash and Siddaraju and Mahila Morcha president Geetha Vivekananda. Since the seven MLCs are elected by MLAs, the BJP, given its strength in assembly, can win four seats, the Congress two and the JD(S) one.
Winning matters In Hubballi, former CM Jagadish Shettar defended the induction of Basavaraj Horatti into BJP saying, “in politics winnability matters”. He said the party made ths decision based on various factors.
On the age-limit of 75 to contest elections, Shettar said, “We have followed it, but it is not written in the party constitution. In exceptional cases, the party need not follow it. In Kerala, Sreedharan was given a ticket to contest from BJP, and his age was 80.”
