As the date of the crucial assembly election in the Indian state of Karnataka is nearing, showing all political players in the state that the Congress Party is pretty much confident about its victory this time, the grand old party, which is ruling the state, has declared its much awaited candidate list.
There are no surprising elements in the candidate list, except the party’s decision to give only a single seat to the Chief Minister, Siddaramiah, and its strategy to withhold the name of the candidate selected for the Shantinagar constituency.
There are concrete reasons for both moves. The first one is due to the belief among a section of party elites that the allocation of more than one seat to the CM candidate will give a wrong message to the electorate, and the second is because of the fear that if the party gives the Santhinagar constituency to its sitting MLA, N A Haris, whose son Mohammed Nalapad Haris recently tainted the image of the party by indulging in a brawl in a restaurant with a innocent person, it might backfire and might be used by the opposition parties to paste a negative image on the grand old party and the anti-violence ideology the party upholds.
Notably, all legislators, who ditched their parties to join the Congress Party, have been felicitated with assembly seats.
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