Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Apr 8: BJP has sent the list of aspiring candidates for the assembly election to the national leadership. In all likelihood, in the first phase, names candidates for 125 to 150 constituencies in the state may be released on Sunday April 8 or Monday. BJP state president, B S Yeddyurappa, union minister, Ananth Kumar, and BJP national joint secretary, B L Santhosh, reached New Delhi to finalize this exercise on Saturday.

BJP's parliamentary board meeting is scheduled for today. It will consider the names of aspirants for all the 224 constituencies in the state as well as opinions collected from local leaders about their victory prospects. National president of BJP, Amit Shah, is likely to check the survey report prepared by the party and Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, and the opinions put together during the four-day meeting, before finalizing the list.

Siddaramaih, Yeddyurappa & Kumaraswamy

The four-day meeting conducted by state leaders of BJP for conducting this exercise, concluded on Saturday. On Saturday, the committee collected opinions from aspirants and leaders from coastal and Malnad regions of the state. As per information available, names of Eshwarappa and B S Yeddyurappa have been given green signal although they are sitting members of parliament and legislative council, while the demands by MPs, Shobha Karandlaje and Sriramulu, to contest the assembly poll have been referred to the central leadership for final decision. Yeddyurappa's son, Vijayendra, will get ticket from Varuna constituency while V Somanna's son, Dr Arun Somanna, will be fielded from Arasikere. The national leaders will take a final call on the demand for assembly tickets put forth by certain MLCs including V Somanna.

Yeddyurappa said that he would request Amit Shah to announce names of 150 candidates in the first phase. Ananth Kumar said that unlike Congress and JD(S), his party is not having any problem in choosing candidates.

Congress party has already prepared a list of aspirants for all the 224 constituencies. For each of the constituencies, three names have been given, and the list will be scrutinized by the screening committee which will meet at New Delhi shortly. The party is expected to release the entire list of 224 candidates in one go during the second week of April.

JD(S) in the meanwhile, is in no hurry to bring out its list although it had initially said that it would release the list ahead of other parties. The party's core committee reportedly had finalized candidates for 50 constituencies. The party had said that it would release 50 names after Ugadi, but this did not happen. It is learnt that the party is now waiting for Congress and BJP to release list of candidates before it publishes its own list.