AAP releases first list of 80 candidates for Karnataka Assembly elections
Bengaluru, Mar 20: The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday released the first list comprising 80 candidates who will contest the upcoming Assembly elections in Karnataka.
The party has said it will field candidates in all the 224 Assembly segments in the State, where Assembly elections are due by May.
The first list includes Supreme Court lawyer Brijesh Kalappa, who will contest from Chickpet, former Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officer K Mathai (Shanti Nagar), B T Naganna (Rajajinagar), Mohan Dasari (C V Raman Nagar), Shanthala Damle (Mahalakshmi Layout) and Ajay Gowda from Padmanabhanagar.
Addressing a press conference, party state chief Prithvi Reddy said, ''These candidates (in the list) represent various sections of the society. The average age of the list of our candidates is only 46 years. More than 50 per cent of our candidates are below the age of 45,'' Reddy said.
According to him, the candidates have been chosen after a survey.
Reddy said 69 candidates are fresh faces, adding that the list comprises youth, women, farmers and people from various backgrounds.
''Our list has highly educated people. We have 13 advocates, three doctors and four IT professionals in the first list,'' the AAP leader said.
On the party fielding Sharatchandra from Channapatna, who is a relative of Congress state president D K Shivakumar, Reddy said it does not matter who is relatives are, and added that the fact that they have chosen AAP over Congress is ''sufficient''.
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Surat LS candidate Nilesh Kumbhani whose nomination form was rejected suspended from Congress
Ahmedabad, Apr 25: The Gujarat Congress on Friday suspended from the party for six years its Surat Lok Sabha candidate Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to the BJP's Mukesh Dalal getting elected unopposed.
A statement from the Congress said the party's disciplinary committee decided to suspend Kumbhani after thorough discussion, adding it had come to the conclusion that the nomination form was rejected due to gross negligence on his part or "in connivance with the BJP".
"To be fair to you we have given time to you to explain your case but instead of coming before the party disciplinary committee you have gone incommunicado. After your form was rejected by the authorities, BJP went ahead and got form of other eight candidates withdrawn. This has deprived people of Surat their voting rights," the Congress disciplinary committee headed by Balu Patel said.
"People of Surat and party workers have become very angry due to your action and are expressing their anger in different ways. The Congress party has decided to suspend you for six years from the party," the press note said.
Kumbhani's nomination form was rejected on April 21 after his three proposers submitted affidavits to the district returning officer claiming the signatures on the document was not theirs.
The nomination form of Suresh Padsala, the Congress' substitute candidate from Surat, was also invalidated on the same grounds.
In his order, Returning Officer Sourabh Pardhi said the three nomination forms submitted by Kumbhani and Padsala were rejected after prima facie discrepancy was found in the signatures of the proposers and they did not appear to be genuine.
Kumbhani, a former corporator from Surat, had unsuccessfully fought the 2022 Assembly polls from Kamrej there.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was elected unopposed from Surat Lok Sabha constituency on April 22 after all other nominees, including one from BSP, withdrew from the fray one by one on the last day of withdrawing papers.
