The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded 14 sitting MPs from the list of 21 candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress, which has an electoral alliance with the Janata Dal Secular [JD(S)] has opted for the social engineering route.

The party in an effort to pin down its opposition stalwarts — such as senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in Kalaburgi, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil in Mandya, and JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna in Hassan — has fielded former Congress MLAs Umesh Jadhav for the Kalaburgi seat and A Manju in Hassan .

In Mandya, the BJP is strategically supporting Sumalatha, wife of late Kannada actor Ambareesh, as an independent candidate. Similarly, it has fielded former Minister and veteran Dalit leader V Srinivas Prasad from Chamarajanagar, which he represented earlier, in an effort to wrest the seat from the Congress. The BJP is also keen to clinch the Bengaluru rural seat, which is currently being represented by Congress leader and minister DK Shivakumar’s brother DK Suresh.

The JD(S)-Congress coalition government currently ruling in the State is betting heavily on transfer of votes from each other to take on BJP in majority of the districts, especially in Old Mysuru, Malnad, Coastal and Central Karnataka where caste and religion plays a vital role.

This election, the Congress got 20 seatsand the JD(S) eight seats as part of the pre-election agreement. The Congress after much dilly-dallying announced its list which included two sitting MLAs – Eshwar Khandre (to contest from Bidar) and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (from Davanagere). For the other seats, the Congress party has opted to serve the regional, caste and religious demands. The Congress announced its list of 18 names late on Saturday, with candidates for Dharwad South kept pending.

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