Political parties finalising lists of candidates for Assembly polls

Bangalore, Apr 8 (UNI) With the election to dissolved Karnataka assembly nearing, major political parties including Congress, BJP and JD(S) are running against the time to finalise the list of candidates.

The BJP, which was ahead of the other two parties in finalising its candidates has finalised its first list of over 125 candidates which is likely to be announced by the party high command on Thursday, party sources said.

Party's Karnataka in charge for election campaign Arun Jaitley has so far conducted two meetings of BJP's Core Committee last week in which he had issued guidelines to be followed in the process of selection of the candidates and poll campaign schedules.

BJP is also in contact with prominent Congress and JD(S) leaders to lure them into the party fold in the run-up to the May elections.

Last week it inducted two former ministers, Muniyappa Muddappa (JD-S) and B Mahadev (Cong).

Hectic activities is also being witnessing in the Congress camp.

Senior leaders including S M Krishna, N Dharam Singh, C K Jaffer Sharief, Siddaramaiah and KPCC President Mallikarjuna Kharge have finalised party's election campaign.

Congress in Karantaka, in its bid to return to power, has planned to launch its campaign with a big bang by holding a massive farmers 'thanks giving rallies' in Davanagere from April 14 at Davanagere followed by state level women's convention at Mandya. This would be followed by 'Social Justice' convention at Kolar and minorities convention at Gulbarga.

The party's senior leaders are scheduled to meet here tomorrow and finalise the first list for the first phase of elections in the Southern districts to be held on May 10.

The party received large number of applications seeking to contest the elections. The Election Committee of the KPCC is in the process of scrutinising the aspirants list and would send it to party high command for ratification, KPCC president Mallikarjuna Kharge told UNI.

Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led JD(S) convened a meeting of top leaders today and discussed about the strategy to be adopted in the elections. He told the leaders that party would not have pre-poll alliance with any political party including Samajawadi Party and goes to poll on its own strength.

He also ruled out any post-poll alliance with any other parties including BJP and the Congress.

Eleven districts would go to polls on May ten in the first phase. This include Bangalore city, Bangalore Rural, Ramanagaram, Kolar, Chickballapur, Mandya, Hassan, Kodagu, Mysore, Tumkur and Chamarajanagar.

The notification for election in these district will be issued on 16th of this month while last date of withdrawing of nominations will be on April 24th.

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