The Congress has declared Geetha Shivarajkumar as its candidate for the Shivamogga Lok Sabha constituency. The BJP is expected to field incumbent MP B.Y. Raghavendra for one more term. With that, the children of two former Chief Ministers will be in the contest for the Shivamogga seat.
Earlier contests
Ms. Shivarajkumar, daughter of the former Chief Minister late S. Bangarappa, contested for the seat on the JD(S) ticket in 2014 and lost against the former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa by a huge margin. Ms. Shivarajkumar stood third after Mr. Yediyurappa and Congress candidate Manjunath Bhandary in that election. Mr. Yediyurappa had won by a margin of 3.63 lakh votes from the nearest rival of the Congress. This time, Ms. Shivarajkumar is likely to face Mr. Yediyurappa’s son, Mr. Raghavendra, who has been elected to Parliament three times. Interestingly, Mr. Raghavendra, in his first Lok Sabha election in 2009, had defeated Bangarappa.