The Janata Dal (Secular) party in Karnataka, on Monday, December 19, announced its first list of candidates for 93 seats for the upcoming state elections in 2023. A notable change in this list has been that HD Kumaraswamy will contest from only one seat in Channapatna and has given up the Ramanagara seat to his son, Nikhil Kumaraswamy. In 2018, Kumaraswamy contested and won from two seats – Channapatna and Ramanagara. Subsequently, he resigned from the Ramanagara seat and his wife Anitha Kumaraswamy won the bye-election in 2018.
Meanwhile, party veteran GT Devegowda is once again contesting from Chamundeshwari constituency, while his son Harish Gowda has been named as a candidate from Hunsur. Several incumbent MLAs will continue from their current constituencies.
The list does not include any candidates for the seven assembly constituencies in Hassan district leading to further speculation about the candidacy of HD Revanna’s wife, Bhavani. Revanna’s son Prajwal is the Member of the Parliament of Hassan district. Bhavani is understood to have expressed her interest in contesting elections this time, but the Deve Gowda family has not given any indication about whether she will be contesting. GT Devegowda, who stayed back with the party after a meeting with JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda, had been threatening to leave the party for some time. The party has further pacified him with a ticket for his son, Harish.
Another notable name on the list is Bandeppa Kashempur who will be contesting from Bidar south. Kashempur had earlier served as the Co-operation minister during HD Kumaraswamy’s 2018 tenure. JD(S) is the first party in the state to announce its list of candidates.
The list announced the names of Nagaraj and CMR Srinath for Gubbi and Kolar respectively as replacements for two of its legislators. The party had suspended two of its MLAs, SR Srinivas from Gubbi and CMR Srinath from Kolar, for cross-voting in Karnataka Rajya Sabha polls for four seats in June this year.
In July, HD Kumaraswamy had said that Nikhil would not be contesting the assembly polls. "Who said Nikhil will contest? He has decided to work towards organising the party in about 30-40 constituencies. Nikhil will not contest assembly polls," Kumaraswamy had said.
Nikhil lost the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from the party bastion of Mandya to BJP-backed independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh, an actor-turned-politician. But Anitha Kumaraswamy announced his candidacy from Ramanagara a few days ago at the Pancharatna yatra. She has also said that she is not interested in contesting elections this time.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, GT Devegowda emerged as the winner in Chamundeshwari, after defeating the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, by a margin of over 30,000 votes. Devegowda swept the elections by winning 1,00,308 votes as opposed to Siddaramaiah who managed only 65,899 votes.
JD(S) had earlier announced that it would be releasing the list of names during the launch of the Pancharatna yatra at Mulbagal in November but had postponed it citing astrological advice. The yatra itself was postponed by several days because of incessant rains.