Council poll: BSY wins the day

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The ruling BJP performed a skilful balancing act by finalising six candidates including three from former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s camp for the forthcoming Legislative Council elections from the Assembly constituency.

The party can win six of the eleven seats which have fallen vacant, based on its Assembly strength which stands at 122. The elections will be held on June 11.

The candidate list has proved that Mr Yeddyurappa, despite facing the heat of a CBI probe and several land scam cases, can still dictate terms in the party. Sources said BSY was treated honourably and his nominees accepted on the instructions of the central leadership.

The BSY camp nominees are former political advisor to the CM, B.J. Puttaswamy, D.S. Veeraiah and Somanna Bevinamarada. The party had to revoke the suspension of Puttaswamy—who had filed papers for an earlier poll without the party’s consent— before recommending his name.

The other candidates are Bhanuprakash, Raghunath Malkapure and Council deputy chairman Vimala Gowda. The party decided to renominate Vimala Gowda and D.S. Veeraiah for a third and second term respectively.

The caste and regional factors came into play while finalising the candidates, said sources. Each candidate will have to obtain 19 votes to win. The party has decided to cast its eight surplus votes for its candidates to ensure they win comfortably without any problems.

The names were finalised by the core committee which met Tuesday night. While Yeddyurappa read out his list of nominees, Mr Eshwarappa presented the list of three candidates approved by the party which ensured there was no confrontation, sources said.

According to the sources,Vimala Gowda and Raghunath Malkapure are backed by party national general secretary Ananth Kumar while Shimoga BJP president Bhanuprakash got the ticket for his organising skills.