3 new entrants from Cong given BJP tickets in first list in Karnataka
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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South African police arrest suspect in mass shooting that killed 12, including 3 children
Johannesburg (AP): A 32-year-old suspect has been arrested in connection with a mass shooting which claimed the lives of 12 people including three children at an unlicensed pub earlier this month, South African police said on Monday.
The man is suspected of being one of the three people who opened fire on patrons in a pub at Saulsville township, west of South Africa's capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
At least 13 people were also injured during the attack, whose motive remains unknown.
According to the police, the suspect was arrested on Sunday while traveling to Botlokwa in Limpopo province, more than 340 km from where the mass shooting took place on Dec 6.
An unlicensed firearm believed to have been used during the attack was recovered from the suspect's vehicle.
“The 32-year-old suspect was intercepted by Limpopo Tracking Team on the R101 Road in Westenburg precinct. During the arrest, the team recovered an unlicensed firearm, a hand gun, believed to have been used in the commission of the multiple murders. The firearm will be taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory for ballistic analysis,” police said in statement.
The suspect was arrested on the same day that another mass shooting at a pub took place in the Bekkersdal township, west of Johannesburg, in which nine people were killed and 10 wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire on patrons.
Police have since launched a search for the suspects.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, according to authorities.
According to police, mass shootings at unlicensed bars are becoming a serious problem. Police shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
