Karnataka Assembly Election 2018: Congress shuns ‘one-family, one-ticket’ policy; Sidddaramaiah, son get ticket in list of 218 candidates

The Congress has moved away from its “one-family, one-ticket” formula for Karnataka Assembly elections 2018. The grand old party has given tickets to incumbent chief minister and his son, the Home Minister and his daughter, and the Law minister and his son. The party has fielded heavyweights – chief minister Siddaramaiah from Chamundeshwari and state party chief G Parameshwara from Korategere.

However, the party didn’t allow Siddaramaiah to contest from two seats. Earlier, there was speculation that the chief minister might be in the fray from a second constituency, Badami, in north Karnataka’s Bagalkote district.

Earlier, Siddaramaiah was representing Varuna in Mysuru. His son, Yatindra, will now contest from here. Chamundeshwari is considered as the pocket-borough of Siddaramaiah. He had made his debut from the seat in 1983 on a Lok Dal ticket. He has won the constituency five times and tasted defeat twice.

The party cut the tickets of 12 sitting MLAs, however, all the ministers were given a ticket. Further, the list included 15 women candidates and seven former JD-S and two ex-BJP legislators who joined the party earlier this year.

Here’s the complete list of 218 candidates from the Congress

Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy will contest the polls from BTM Layout, while his daughter Soumya R will be the candidate from Jayanagara Assembly constituency (Bengaluru). Santosh Jayachandra, the son of heavyweight leader T B Jayachandra, will contest from Chikanayakanhalli Assembly seat (Tumkur).

The Congress has fielded 52 OBCs, 48 Lingayat, 39 Okaliga, 36 Schedule Castes (SC) and 17 Schedule Tribes (STs) candidates in its list. Also, the party has fielded fifteen Muslim, seven Brahmin and 2 Jain and 2 Christian communities candidates in the elections.

The party has also tried to give preference to the youth. Twenty-four of the total candidates are in the age group of 25-40 years, 49 in the 41-50 group, 72 in the 51-60 group, 66 in the 61-70 group and seven candidates are above the age of 70 years.