The ruling Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) in Karnataka on Wednesday night released a second list of 23 candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections, with seven sitting MLAs replaced with new candidates.The second list comes a day after the first list of 189 candidates released on Tuesday night in which nine sitting MLAs were dropped.
The list is still incomplete as candidates for 12 seats out of a total 224 remain unannounced.
The second list does not include former chief minister and six-term MLA Jagadish Shettar, who met BJP president J P Nadda earlier in the day to stake his claim to contest from his Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency, reportedly.
The party has already named its candidate from the seat.
Sixteen of 16 sitting MLAs, out of a total of 116 BJP legislators in the House, have so far lost out on election tickets.
In the second list of 23, four sitting MLAs have been granted tickets.
Among Legislators who have been been denied a ticket are C M Nimbannavar from Kalghatgi constituency, who has been replaced by Congress rebel Nagaraj Chabbi from Kalghatgi seat; Haveri MLA Nehru Olekar; S A Ravindranath (MLA from Davangere North); Linganna (Mayakonda), Madal Virupakshappa (Channagiri); Sukumar Shetty (Baindur); and M P Kumaraswamy (Mudigere).
Several of the rejected MLAs were in the age group of 70 years, and some have been linked with corruption cases.There are two women candidates in the second list, which takes the number of women fielded by BJP in its list of 212 candidates so far to 10.
The entire BJP list will be out by Friday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Wednesday.
The process of filing nominations will begin on Thursday, with the election notification also being issued for nominations.
The last date for nominations is April 20, and the last date for withdrawal of candidature is April 24.Elections will be held on May 10.
