Karnataka: 11 candidates declared elected unopposed to Legislative Council

All the 11 candidates in the fray for the biennial elections to the Karnataka Legislative Council to fill 11 seats were today declared elected unopposed, officials said.

The election was necessitated as the term of the 11 members, elected by MLAs, will expire on June 17.

Of those who got elected, five are from BJP, fourare from Congress, and two from JD(S), officials said.

Those elected are S Rudregowda, Dr Tejaswini Gowda, Raghunath Rao Malkapure, K P Nanjundi Vishwakarma and N Ravikumar (BJP), K Govindaraj, C M Ibrahim, Aravind Kumar Arali and K Harish Kumar (Congress) and B M Farooq and S L Dharme Gowda (JDS).

Though 12 candidates had filed nominations forthe elections that were to be held on June 11, a lone independent candidate's nomination was rejected during scrutiny on June 1.

Today was the last date for withdrawal.

As no one withdrew, officials declared that all 11 candidates have been elected unanimously.

The members who will retire are B J Puttaswamy (BJP), M R Seetharam (Congress), Motamma (Congress), D S Veeraiah (BJP), Syed Mudeer Aga (JDS), Somanna M Bevinamarad (BJP), Raghunath Rao Malkapure (BJP), Bhanu Prakash (BJP), C M Ibrahim (Congress), K Govindaraj (Congress) and B SSuresh (IND).