RS Polls: NDA fields wealthy businessman Kupendra Reddy as fifth candidate from Karnataka
JDS leader Kupendra Reddy emerged as the surprise fifth candidate for the Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. He filed the nomination papers for the February 27 polls, in which MLAs are the voters, in the presence of JDS and BJP leaders.
There are only four vacancies, and one BJP and three Congress candidates would have won unopposed, but the contest has taken a curious turn with the entry of Reddy as NDA candidate.
The development is sure to send a chill in the Congress camp, causing worries of cross voting. The Congress on Wednesday night named AICC leader Ajay Maken, and sitting RS members GC Chandrashekar and Syed Naseer Hussain, for the three seats. Maken is taking the seat vacated by Dalit writer L Hanumanthaiah. The BJP has named former MLC Narayansa Bhandage for the outgoing member Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s seat.
Both the Congress and BJP are in a much better shape now in Karnataka than they were when they faced the Rajya Sabha polls six years ago. The Congress has 135 members now and the BJP 65 seats, now. A candidate would need 45 votes to win, and the JDS decided to field a fifth candidate to garner the surplus votes from within the alliance, and use ‘strategy’ to get outside votes.
Deputy CM DK Shivakumar saw the development as an attempt by the BJP and JDS at “horse-trading.”
“The JDS thinks that BJP will support it, but just wait and see what will happen on February 27. You will get to see how many votes the JDS got from the BJP.”
Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee
