Karnataka Elections 2023: BJP Candidates List Analysis

April 19, 2023

Karnataka Opinion Poll 2023: Assembly elections in Karnataka will be held on May 10. The results will be declared on May 13. The state election has a three-way fight for power between the top parties Congress, BJP, and JDS. For BJP the election will be crucial as this will set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. In the last Karnataka Assembly election, despite BJP failing to win the majority, it emerged as the single largest party.

Out of the total 224 constituencies, 36 seats are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 15 for Scheduled Tribes. A total of 5.24 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise and can cast their votes across 58,282 polling stations. The last date to make a nomination is April 20 as notified by Election Commission (EC). BJP has already released its full list of nominations from each seat.

Karnataka Elections 2023: List of BJP Candidates from each Constituency

The Bhartiya Janta Party has so far announced 212 candidates out of the total 224 seats. The party has put up 52 new candidates in the play while retaining the 90 sitting MLAs. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai will contest from his traditional Shiggaon seat in the Haveri district. While from the Shikaripura seat, the party has put up former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Vijayendra. For the setas of Kanakapura and Varuna, the party has imbibed its faith in R Ashoka and V Somanna.

From the first list, there are 52 new candidates, 32 candidates are Other Backward Classes (OBC) candidates and 30 are Scheduled Castes (SC). Nine candidates are doctors, five lawyers, and two retired bureaucrats. There are eight women on the first list.

On the second list announcing 23 candidates, four sitting MLAs have been denied a party ticket to re-contest. Four are from The Scheduled Caste, one Scheduled Tribe, and two are women candidates.

Among the incumbent MLAs who were not included in the list was Channagiri MLA Virupakshappa, who was recently arrested on corruption charges. The seat will be contested by party-nominated Shiv Kumar.

In Haveri, sitting MLA Nehru Olekar was replaced by Gavisiddappa Dyamannavar. Gururaj Gantihole will be contesting from Byndoorre in place of the sitting MLA B Shetty. From, Mudigere Deepak Doddaiah is nominated in place of sitting MLA M.P Kumaraswamy.

From the Kalghatgi seat Nagaraj Chabbi will be contesting the elections for BJP as he left Congress replacing MLA C M Nimbannavar. Lokikere Nagraj will be contesting from Davangree North taking over the seat from MLA S A Ravindranath. In Mayakonda, sitting MLA N Linganna was denied renomination while Basavaraja Naik will contest for this seat. The total Tally of Incumbent MLA’s denied renomination is 17.

Karnrataka BJP Candidate List: Who’s contesting the Hubbali Seat?

The latest list has no mention of the Hubli-Dharwad Central segment. The catch here is that Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar wants to contest this seat. But the party has asked him to pave the way for youngsters in this Constituency, however, he is adamant to contest it this one last time. He has even threatened the party to run as an independent candidate if not allowed a ticket by the party. Earlier, he met with the BJP Party President to discuss the same.

A final candidate for the Shivamogga city segment is yet to be announced as former minister KS Eshwarappa announced his political retirement.

The party seems to have been unresponsive to the protests and resignation which sparked soon after the party released its first candidate list announcing 189 candidates followed by a list of 23 more, dropping more incumbent MLA’s from the charts. Karnataka is all set to witness a triangular fight between the ruling BJP, the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular). The Congress party has already released its list naming 165 candidates. While JD(S) too had named 93 candidates in December last year.