Bengaluru, Apr 27: Congress and BJP tonight named their candidates for the May 19 by elections to Chincholi and Kundgol.

Congress has fielded Subhash Rathod from Chincholi and Kusumavathi Shivalli from Kundgol.

Rathod and Shivalli will be pitted against BJP candidates Avinash Jadhav and Chikkanagouda Patil.

Their candidature was announced by Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in a press note Saturday night.

Subhash Rathod from Banjara community is close to Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge, whereas Shivalli is the widow of Kundgol Congress MLA C S Shivalli, whose demise about a month ago warranted the bypoll.

Meanwhile, BJP too announced the name of the two candidates from the two constituencies.

The BJP has decided to field Dr Umesh Jadhav's son Avinash Jadhav from Chincholi and Chikkanagouda Patil from Kundgol," BJP spokesperson S Prakash said.

Jadhav is the son of Congress MLA Dr Umesh Jadhav, who resigned from the assembly and joined the BJP to take on Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha election recently.

His resignation warranted the bypoll in Chincholi.

The Congress decided the candidates at a meeting led by AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal, state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao and former chief minister Siddaramaiah at the state Congress headquarters this afternoon.

Congress working president Eshwar Khandre, deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara, and many other senior Congress functionaries were present.

The elections will be held on May 19 and the election commission has already issued a notification to the effect.

The counting will take place on May 23 along with the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections.

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Washington: US President Donald Trump has said he has not yet considered whether he would continue the ceasefire involving Iran, while also claiming the United States holds the advantage in negotiations.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said he was prepared to make a deal with “whoever is running the show” in Iran.

“They are fighting with each other, there’s tremendous infighting. They’re probably fighting for leadership in many cases. I think they’re fighting not to be leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders,” he said.

Trump added, “When they want they can call me. We have all the cards, we’ve won everything.”

Referring to ongoing negotiations, he said, “They gave us a paper that should’ve been better. And, interestingly, immediately when I cancelled it [envoy trip to Pakistan], within 10 minutes we got a new paper that was much better.”

“We talked about they will not have a nuclear weapon, very simple … They offered a lot, but not enough,” he added.

When asked whether he would continue the ceasefire, Trump replied, “I haven’t even thought about it.”

The remarks come as uncertainty remains over the future of the temporary truce and broader negotiations between Washington and Tehran.