14 candidates in fray for Chamundeshwari Assembly bypoll

Mysore, Nov 20 (UNI) Former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress, Shivabasappa of the Janata Dal (Secular), A S Guruswamy (JD-U) and B Karunakaran (Samajwadi Party) were among the 14 candidates in the fray for the byelection to the Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency, scheduled for December four.

Three independents -- D R Venkatesha Gowda, Harshadulla Sharif and Kalimulla Khan -- withdrew their papers today, the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

Besides the four party candidates, L Nagaraj, Bhogadi Nagaraj, Priyam Sreenath, Babu, M S Rudraswamy, Premkumar, Raju, Abhimani Narendra, Sarvothama and M Venkatesh (all independents) were also in the fray.

Though it looked like a four-cornered contest, the bypoll was in reality a direct fight between Mr Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivabasappa, the consensus candidate of the ruling coalition JD(S) and BJP. Mr Guruswamy, who was with the JD(S) until the last day of filing nomination papers, switched to JD(U) and filed his papers as that party's official candidate after being denied a ticket by the JD(S).

Incidentally, Mr Guruswamy had defeated Mr Siddaramaiah during 1999 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket.

Counting of votes for the bypoll, necessitated by Mr Siddaramaiah resigning the seat after he quit JD(S) and joined the Congress, would be taken up on December seven.

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