Lok Sabha Polls: Karnataka BJP candidates list likely to be finalised on Friday

The Karnataka unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) are working together to finalise the candidates to contest for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the southern state. The BJP is in alliance with the Janata Dal (secular), and seat sharing is going to be a significant challenge to parties that lost an assembly election in the state last year.
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BJP stalwart and former Karnataka CM Yediyurappa said that the list will mostly be finalised by Friday. He is already in the national capital to attend the CEC meetings that are scheduled for the next three days. “The CEC meetings will be conducted for the next three days, and candidates will be finalised by Friday. We will wait and see who will make it into the list.”
The BJP is reportedly working extra hard to list candidates from Karnataka as the BJP-JDS coalition is aiming to win at least 25 seats from the southern state. No names have been announced from the state in the first list of 195 candidates across 16 States and Union Territories on March 2.
JDS second in-chief HD Kumaraswamy had already met the BJP high command in the national capital as the party recently joined in the NDA. He is likely to contest from the Mandya Lok Sabha seat in the upcoming general elections, according to multiple media reports. Sumalatha Ambareesh, an MP from Karnataka’s Mandya, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently and said they will continue to work together, indicating that she would not step back from contesting from Mandya.
Meanwhile, the Congress party in Karnataka is yet to announce names for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Karnataka has 28 Lok Sabha seats; in 2019, the BJP won 25 while the Congress and independent candidates won one each.