In a big relief to both the Congress and the BJP, leaders of both the parties who had rebelled against their party decisions and filed their nomination papers as Independent candidates, withdrew their nomination papers on Monday.
In all, 18 candidates out of the total 110 candidates in seven Assembly constituencies of Dharwad district withdrew their nomination papers on Monday, according to District Election Officer Gurudatta Hegde.
That leaves 92 candidates in the fray. The deadline for withdrawal of nomination papers ended at 3 p.m. on Monday.
For elections to seven Assembly constituencies, a total of 182 nomination papers were filed out of which 30 were rejected leaving 152 valid nomination papers filed by 110 candidates.
Prominent among the Congress rebel candidates who withdrew their nomination papers on Monday were Shivanand Karigar in Navalgund, Goudappagouda C. Patil in Kundgol and Altaf Kittur in Hubballi-Dharwad Central.
Similarly, BJP rebel candidates Basavaraj Koravar in Dharwad, Basavaraj Amminbhavi and Venkatesh Mestri in Hubballi-Dharwad East and Hanumanthsa Niranjan in Hubballi-Dharwad Central withdrew their nomination papers.
Although another BJP rebel candidate Tavanappa Ashtagi withdrew his nomination papers, he did it in support of Congress candidate Vinay Kulkarni in Dharwad constituency as he had already joined that party on Sunday.
In another development, although BJP office-bearers had announced that Congress rebel Basavaraj Malakari (Hubballi-Dharwad West) will join the BJP and withdraw his candidature in favour of sitting MLA Arvind Bellad, it did not materialise and Mr. Malakari remains in the fray.
With the deadline ending for withdrawal of nomination papers ending on Monday, there are 13 candidates in the fray in Navalgund constituency, 14 candidates in Kundgol, 11 each in Dharwad and Hubballi-Dharwad East, 16 in Hubballi-Dharwad Central, 15 in Hubballi-Dharwad West and 12 candidates in Kalghatgi constituency.
