The Congress party has announced only one of the five Lok Sabha seats in north western Karnataka till now. Party leaders say it may wait for the BJP’s final list of nominees, to counter them properly.
The name of H.R. Alagur, Dalit leader and former president of the Vijayapura district Congress unit, is the only one announced till now.
BJP, that holds all the five seats in the region, has announced candidates for three seats already. Candidates for Belagavi and Canara are expected to be published in the party’s third list. A senior Congress leader said the leadership may be waiting for the BJP to publish its next list.
No dearth of aspirants
Congress leaders, however, maintain they have no dearth of aspirants. “We may be facing the problem of the plenty when it comes to selection of candidates,” said Minister and KPCC working president Satish Jarkiholi.
“Till now, we have received 16 applications for the two Lok Sabha seats in Belagavi district alone. The number of aspirants are relatively fewer for Bagalkot and Vijayapura,’‘ he said. He said there was no clarity on the issue as yet. “Factors like winnability and caste matrix adjustments will be there, for sure,” he said.
The social engineering that the senior leader is suggesting seems to be about the two seats in Belagavi district. At a party meeting in February, he announced that they planned to field a Lingayat and a OBC candidate from the two seats.
The Vijayapura seat is reserved for Scheduled Castes and the Congress has few aspirants for the Bagalkot seat, that is now held by P.C. Gaddigoudar, a Panchamasali Lingayat. He defeated Veena Kasheppanavar, a fellow Panchamasali, last time.
Ministers’ children
Mrunal Hebbalkar, son of Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar, and Priyanka Jarkiholi, daughter of Minister Satish Jarkiholi, are said to be harbouring political ambition. Both the Ministers have denied reports that their children are seeking ticket, though they have accepted that the party is considering their possible nominations due to pressure from party workers.
Ms. Hebbalkar told reporters in Malur in Kolar district last week that there are discussions about Mrunal Hebbalkar from Belagavi and Priyanka Jarkiholi from Chikkodi.
Party sources say that most Ministers had opposed a suggestion by AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge to contest polls. “In January, Mr. Kharge had suggested that the Minister fight from all the 27 seats, except from Bengaluru Rural held by D.K. Suresh. They were given an offer that if they won, the party would give ticket to whoever they suggested, whether their children or their close aides. But the Ministers resisted. They want ticket for their children, while they remain Ministers,’‘ said a senior leader.
Other candidates
Physician Girish Sonwalkar is another aspirant. A government servant, he is a professor of medicine in the Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences. He also runs two branches of the private hospital Lakeview hospital in Belagavi. He hails from a landed family from Mudalagi. His brothers run cooperative societies and education institutes. He had tried unsuccessfully to get a BJP ticket when the Belagavi seat fell vacant after the death of Suresh Angadi.
A surprise candidate is Mohan Kataraki, senior advocate of the Supreme Court. Hailing from Hulkund in Ramdurg taluk, he has settled in New Delhi for several decades now. He has appeared for Karnataka in several river water disputes and other cases. He has approached the AICC and KPCC seeking ticket to serve his State in a more meaningful manner. He has also cited his connections with farmers in the Krishna belt and long connections with the Congress top leadership.
The party’s choice for candidates from Chikkodi seems to be narrow. The most talked about name is that of Prakash Hukkeri, MLC and special representative- 2 of the Karnataka government in New Delhi. He was among the few Congress MPs elected from northern Karnataka in 2014. However, he has vehemently denied this. “I am not interested. I have made this clear before the party,” he told reporters in Belagavi recently. Satish Jarkiholi responded by saying that whenever Mr. Hukkeri said something, he meant the exact opposite.
The other candidates are former MP Amarsinh Patil, Rajendra Sannakki and Lakshman Rao Chingale, all from the Kuruba community.
Anjali Nimbalkar, former MLA from Khanapur is an aspirant from the Canara LS seat. Khanapur and Kittur that are situated in Belagavi district, are part of the Canara LS seat. Dr Nimbalkar, the Kshatriya Maratha leader is related to Ashok Chauhan, former CM of Maharashtra. The post graduate in medicine lived in Kolhapur before her marriage to Hemant Nimbalkar, Karnataka cadre IPS officer. She defeated BJP and MES candidates from Khanapur in 2018. But she lost in 2023. She has been active in party meetings in Uttara Kannada district recently. She was seen along with the CM and other ministers in party programmes in the district.
