Karnataka Congress leader Siddaramaiah usually contests from two seats
Bengaluru:
Siddaramaiah, one of the prominent Congress leaders in Karnataka, who is preparing to contest next month’s assembly elections from Varuna, the constituency of his MLA son Yatindra Siddaramaiah, told NDTV that he is not afraid of losing.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has already announced that he will no longer participate in electoral politics after this year’s elections. Siddaramaiah was hoping to get a ticket from the Kolar constituency, a major mining region, before the Congress showed him as its candidate in the first list from Varuna in Mysore.
“The Congress will emerge as the single largest party,” Siddaramaiah told NDTV. There is no question of a hung assembly, he said.
For now he is busy overseeing preparations ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Kolar, the same place where Mr Gandhi made a controversial remark on the Modi surname during the 2019 general election that led to his disqualification from the Lok Sabha I went. The gathering after the recent conviction in the defamation case.
The Karnataka Congress leader chose to contest from Varuna as it was where he started his political career, and when he decided he wanted to quit electoral politics, he chose his home constituency Varuna for the last time.
Siddaramaiah usually contests from two seats. He had prepared the ground for fighting Kolar for months. In his application to the Karnataka Congress in February, Siddaramaiah had mentioned Badami, Varuna and Kolar as the three constituencies from which he would contest.
Badami and Kolar are not included in the first list of the Congress raising questions on the game plan of the party as Siddaramaiah was planning to contest from two seats like last time. Sources said it is unlikely that he will get Kolar as local reports suggest that he may not win from there.
Till yesterday there was also speculation that BY Vijayendra, son of former Karnataka Chief Minister and BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa, would contest from the seat from where Siddaramaiah would contest.
Mr Yediyurappa later put an end to speculation about his son – Mr Vijayendra would contest from Shikaripura, the same seat his father had won seven times since 1983.
Karnataka assembly elections will be held on 10 May. The counting of votes will take place after three days.
