Four dissidents might tip the scales in council elections

It is becoming evident that rebellion might affect four seats, with biennial votes for six council seats (three graduates and three teachers) slated for June 3. If some leaders who have rebelled and submitted their candidacy papers don’t give in to pressure from their party’s high command and continue to compete, the race may end in a cliffhanger. May 20 is the deadline for nomination withdrawals.

The rebel candidate in the North East Graduates seat (Ballari, Bidar, Kalaburagi, Koppal, Raichur, Vijayanagara, and Yadgir) is Suresh R. Sajjan, vice president of Kalaburagi-Yadgir DCC Bank. He is running against Amarnath Patil, the official candidate of the BJP. Chandrashekar B Patil, a former MLC from the Congress, stands to gain from this uprising.

There are issues for both Dr. Dhananjaya Sarji of the BJP and Ayanur Manjunath of the Congress in the South West Graduates seat (Chikkamagaluru, Dakshina Kannada, Davanagere, Kodagu, Shivamogga & Udupi). Former Udupi MLA K Raghupathi Bhat, who was not given representation by the party in the Council elections, has said that he would not withdraw his papers due to the regional imbalance. So, Sarji, a newcomer and Shivamogga native, may find things difficult.

For Ayanur, things would be the same since senior Congress leader SP Dinesh, who lost his two previous contests by a little margin, is supposedly determined to continue running.

With Dr. SR Harish Acharya of the BJP having submitted his papers, SL Boje Gowda of the JDS, the NDA candidate from the South West Teachers seat (Chikkamagaluru, Dakshina Kannada, two taluks of Davanagere, Kodagu, Shivamogga, and Udupi), has a difficult battle ahead of him. K K Manjunath Kumar, the candidate for Congress, can capitalize on the division within the BJP-JDS coalition.

There isn’t a significant rebellion in either party in the Bengaluru Graduates seat (BBMP Central, North, South, Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru Urban, & Ramanagara), where A Deve Gowda is the BJP candidate and Ramoji Gowda is running on a Congress ticket. However, Ferdinand Lawrence, the general secretary of the KPCC on social media, has also submitted his paperwork and is running as the Congress dissident candidate.

In the race for the South East Teachers seat, the incumbent BJP MLC Y A Narayanaswamy is expected to face stiff competition from DT Srinivas, the spouse of former Hiriyur MLA Poornima.

The insurrection in the South Teachers seat (Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Mandya, and Mysuru) was put down by the BJP-JDS leadership when BJP EC Ningaraj Gowda was persuaded to withdraw his papers in favor of JDS candidate K Vivekananda. KT Srikante Gowda, a former MLC, was eager to register as a JDS rebel but was unable to do so due to his hospitalization on Thursday.

Examining documents for the SE Teachers’ seat was postponed.

The South East Teachers’ nomination paper was postponed until 3 pm on Saturday by the Election Commission of India (ECI), claiming technical concerns. The ECI examined the nomination papers of the candidates for five Legislative Council seats on Friday. 22 nomination papers have been submitted by 15 candidates for the position. Up to 103 candidates have submitted 156 nomination forms for the six seats up for election on June 3. On Friday, 76 contenders had their papers approved to compete for the five seats. The JDS, BJP, and Congress were the three main parties whose nomination papers were approved. A problem existed with the Bengaluru Graduates’ seat as well since some of the independents’ papers were rejected by Amlan Aditya Biswas for being out of order. Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena said, “Scrutiny is quasi-judicial work done by the RO in front of candidates.”