Karnataka Election 2018: Yeddyurappa's son not to contest against Siddaramaiah's son from Varuna

The BJP today released its fourth list of seven candidates for the May 12 Karnataka Assembly polls.

With today's announcement, the BJP has declared its nominees for 220 seats for the polls to the 224-member state Assembly but has withheld the names of its candidates for seats such as Varuna, from where the son of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is contesting on a Congress ticket. BJP's chief ministerial candidate B S Yeddyurappa's son B Y Vijayendra was seen as a likely candidate from the seat but the party ruled out his name today. The saffron party is making an all-out bid to oust the Congress government from the state.  The counting of the votes will be done on May 15.

Reacting to the decision, Vijayendra wrote on Twitter: “I wholeheartedly stand by & support party's decision in all circumstances. I urge the party cadre to maintain peace & tranquility which is of foremost importance. I will continue to work towards bringing @BJP4Karnataka to power in the state under the leadership of Shri @BSYBJP!”

Having fallen on hard times following the humongous iron ore mining scam, the resourceful Reddy brothers of Ballari are back in the reckoning, with the BJP fielding two of them for the political potboiler of an Assembly poll slated next month.

The mining scam that rocked Karnataka not many years ago is no longer a reason for the BJP to jettison the influential Reddy brothers whom it has embraced once again. The party has fielded G Somashekhara Reddy in Ballari city, and his elder brother and former Ballari Lok Sabha member G Karunakara Reddy in Harappanahalli in Davanagere district. Though the most resourceful of them--G Janardhana Reddy-- has been barred from entering Ballari, in accordance with his bail conditions in the illegal mining case, he is camping near Molakalmuru in Chitradurga district overseeing the campaign of his siblings as also the BJP, which is making a determined effort to form its government in the key southern state for a second time.

The BJP has publicly distanced itself from Janardhana Reddy, with party chief Amit Shah recently saying it has nothing to do with him, but ground realities suggest otherwise.The Congress party and a section of the BJP see Shah's statement as mere public posturing. Janardhana Reddy, they say, has been given the task of galvanising the Reddy community votes for the saffron party in the region. The Reddy brothers, whose stock soared during the iron ore export boom, had played a key role in installing the BJP's first government in the south in 2008.