Bengaluru, May 24 (FN Agency) The BJP on Tuesday decided to field four MLAs for the Karnataka Legislative Council and one from Teachers’ Constituency, but former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Vijayendra was ignored. The BJP announced the names of Chaluvadi Narayanaswamy, Hemalatha Nayak, S Keshavprasad and Laxmana Savadi for MLC election and Basavaraj Horatti for Teachers’ Constituency. Horatti had joined the BJP on May 18 in the presence of Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai after resigning from the post of Legislative Council Chairman. Last week, Karnataka BJP had held a core committee meeting to discuss the names for MLC elections and the party had recommended several names. One among them was Vijayendra. The Election Commission had announced the elections for seven seats on June 3. The BJP can win four seats easily with their current strength in the Legislative Assembly. The last date for filing nominations is Tuesday.
Elections for two Graduates’ and two Teachers’ constituencies are scheduled to be held on June 13. The Yediyurappa camp was expecting the party to give ticket to Vijayendra as he had played a prominent role in ensuring party candidates Narayana Gowda and Dr B M Rajesh Gowda’s victories from KR Pete and Sira constituencies in assembly byelections. However, after winning the two difficult constituencies, Vijayendra did not succeed in ensuring party candidate Pratapgouda Patil’s victory in Maski constituency of Raichur district in April 2021. He also did not succeed in Hangal where Congress candidate Srinivas Mane won. In 2018, the BJP did not field Vijayendra from Varuna constituency. In December 2021 too the party denied him a ticket in biennial election for 25 MLC seats under local authorities constituencies. Probably the BJP does not want to give a ticket to a third member of Yediyurappa family as on many occasions it has accused the Congress and JD-S of nepotism.