Karnataka bypolls: Congress names 6 more candidates

The Congress on Sunday released another list of 6 candidates who would be contesting the upcoming bypolls to 15 assembly seats in Karnataka.

In the list of candidates announced by the Congress, GB Mangasuli will be contesting from Athani, BA Kage from Kagwad, Lakha Jarkiholi from Gokak, Venkatrao Ghorpade from Vijaynagara, Rizwan Arshad from Shivajinagara, and K.B. Chandrashekar from KR Pet.

Earlier, Congress announced the name of eight candidates who would be contesting the bypolls. The party is yet to announce the name of the candidate for the Yeshwanthapura seat in Bengaluru north.

The election was triggered by the disqualification of 17 Karnataka MLAs by the Speaker which was also upheld by the Supreme Court in a recent judgment. The bypolls to two seats has been withheld due to pending court cases (bypolls was supposed to happen for 17 assembly seats instead of 15)   

Assembly speaker KR Ramesh had disqualified 17 MLAs after they rebelled against the then Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy in July which eventually led to the fall of the Congress-JDS government after the coalition failed to prove their majority in the floor of the house.

Even though the Supreme Court upheld the speaker's decision to disqualify the 17 Karnataka MLAs, it also said that they were free to contest the Assembly bypolls.

On Thursday, 16 out of the 17 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs have joined the BJP in the presence of the chief minister BS Yediyurappa. 13 of them have been announced as candidates for the upcoming assembly bypolls in Karnataka.

The by-election in Karnataka to 15 assembly seats will be held on December 5 and the counting of votes will take place on December 9.