Bengaluru, Mar 21: Recent entrant and Congress rebel lawmaker Umesh Jadhav will take on Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge from Gulbarga as the BJP announced its list of 21 candidates for the two-phased Lok Sabha polls in the state.

Two other new entrants from the Congress A Manju, a former MLA, and his party colleague Devendrappa, both of whom joined the BJP recently, have been rewarded with tickets to contest from Hassan and Bellary, respectively.

Fourteen of the 21 candidates announced are sitting members.

The names of the candidates for Karnataka were part of the first list of 184 nominees for Lok Sabha polls announced by senior BJP leader J P Nadda in Delhi Thursday evening.

The state has 28 Lok Sabha seats, of which the BJP had bagged 17, Congress 9 and JDS 2 in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP had yielded Ballari seat to Congress in the November bypolls.

Jadhav, a former Minister, joined the BJP at a party rally in Kalaburagi on March 6, two days after he quit the Karnataka Assembly membership, at a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Jadhav, who was sulking after being dropped as minister, had on March 4 submitted his resignation from the Assembly to Speaker Ramesh Kumar.

However, Jadhav's resignation as MLA has not yet been accepted by the Speaker, who is also yet to decide on the disqualification petitions filed by the Congress, against him.

Manju, joined BJP on Sunday, unhappy with Congress' decision to cede Hassan seat to its coalition partner JD(S).

He is likely to fight against former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's grandson Prajwal Revanna. Gowda is the sitting MP from Hassan.

Manju was earlier with BJP before joining the Congress and becoming Minister in the previous Siddaramaiah led government and again returning back to the saffron party.

Union Ministers D V Sadananda Gowda from Bangalore North, Ramesh Jigajinagi from Bijapur and Ananth Kumar Hegde from Uttara Kannada, as also B Y Raghavendra, son of former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa from Shimoga, have been renominated.

Other candidates whose names have been announced by the party are, Suresh Angadi (Belgaum), P C Gaddigoudar (Bagalkot), Bhagawanth Kuba (Bidar), Shivkumar Udasi (Haveri), Prahlad Joshi (Dharwad) and Siddeshwara (Davangere);

Shobha Karandlaje (Udupi-Chikmagalur), Nalin Kumar Kateel (Dakshina Kannada), Narayana Swamy (Chitradurga), Basavaraju (Tumkur);

Prathap Simha (Mysore), Srinivasa Prasad (Chamarajanagar), PC Mohan (Bangalore central) and Bachche Gowda (Chikkaballapur).

BJP is the first to announce its list of candidates, while the Congress and JD(S) are yet to finalise their list with confusion still prevailing over some constituencies following opposition at the grassroot level over conceding the seats.

Congress workers in Mandya, Tumkur and Hassan are miffed with the party for conceding the seats to JDS.

The Congress and JD(S) that have decided to fight the polls in alliance will contest for 20 and 8 seats, respectively.

Karnataka will go to the polls in two phases, 14 constituencies each, on April 18 and 23.

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Bengaluru (PTI): A group of eleven female passengers was booked for allegedly creating nuisance and disturbing other commuters inside the metro train by singing aloud, police said on Friday.

The incident occurred on the night of March 15 when they were travelling from Bengaluru International Exhibition Centres to KGWA (Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Metro Station) metro line, they said.

The group allegedly started singing loudly inside the coach, leading to objections from other commuters.

Later, at Peenya Industrial Area station, some passengers alighted and continued arguing on the platform, briefly preventing the train doors from closing, a senior police officer said.

Following the incident, security personnel intervened and brought the situation under control, he said.

The same group allegedly created nuisance at several stations. Metro security staff and home guards identified and detained those involved at different points, with support from Hoysala patrol teams, police said.

Based on a complaint by BMRCL Security Officer, a non-cognisable report was filed against these 11 female passengers, the officer said.

A non-cognisable report is filed when the offence is considered minor in nature.

However, they were let off after they apologised for their actions, police said.