A large group of Congress workers from various constituencies in Karnataka staged a protest in front of Congress Bhawan at Bengaluru’s Queens Road, demanding tickets for their leaders in the second list of candidates for the state election scheduled on May 10.
The grand old party will hold a Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting on Tuesday and finalise the second list of candidates.
Karnataka working president Saleem Ahmed told news agency ANI said that there is a lot of demand for tickets. He said that there is the CEC meeting tomorrow and the ticket distribution will be discussed and finalised.
He said, “Our party is winning the elections, hence there is a lot of demand for our party tickets. The CEC meeting will be held on Tuesday, and we are also getting a survey report of the constituencies. The best candidates will get the tickets.”
Congress had already released its first list of 124 candidates on March 25, and is yet to finalise the candidates for 100 more constituencies.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister and the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Siddaramaiah will contest from Varuna in Mysuru district and Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar will contest from Kanakapura constituency.
Both Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah are chief ministerial aspirants in the event of the party coming to power in the state. The Congress stalwarts are among the prominent leaders who figure in the first list of candidates for the Assembly elections. Of the 124 candidates fielded in the first list by Congress, 20 per cent of them are from the powerful Lingayat community.
Priyank Kharge, son of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, will contest from Chitapur.
Last week, the Election Commission of India announced that assembly polls in the state will be held on May 10 and results will be declared on May 13. The last date for filing nominations is April 20 and the last date to withdraw nominations is April 24.