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BJP announces Suresh Angadi’s widow as its candidate for Belagavi bypolls
Suresh Angadi was the Union minister of state for railways. He died due to Covid-19 related complications on September 23 last year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced the names of the three candidates for the April 17 by-polls in three seats of Karnataka.
The party, in a late evening release, said that Mangala Suresh Angadi, the widow of late Union minister Suresh Angadi was its choice for the Belagavi (Belgaum) Lok Sabha by-polls.
Suresh Angadi was the Union minister of state for railways. He died due to Covid-19 related complications on September 23 last year.
The party has named Sharanu Salagar as its choice from Basavakalyan in Bidar district.
The BJP continued to show its gratitude to the 17 defectors as it named Pratapgouda Patil as its choice from Maski in Raichur district. Patil was one of the 17 legislators who engineered the collapse of the HD Kumaraswamy-led Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S)-Congress government in 2019, defected to the BJP and helped Yediyurappa come to power as the chief minister of Karnataka for the fourth time.
The Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) has announced that it will contest both Basavakalyan and Maski by-polls. The Congress on the other hand has announced candidates for all three constituencies that provide Yediyurappa with an opportunity to silence the growing calls for his removal from within his own party, analysts said.
BJP won Belagavi in 2019 while the Congress had won both Basavakalyan and Maski seats in 2018.
Yediyurappa has shown his gratitude to almost all those who helped him to power as they occupy nearly half of the cabinet berths in the state. However, one of those turncoats, Ramesh Jarkiholi has found himself in the thick of a raging sex-scandal in Karnataka that has further pushed Yediyurappa to a corner.
Jarkiholi, one of the catalysts in the defection drama, had to resign from the cabinet after a social activist filed a complaint of sexual harassment on behalf of the alleged victim.
The alleged sex-for-job scandal continues to haunt the BJP government in Karnataka as the opposition has sought a court-monitored probe into the case and also demanded that a case of rape be filed.
Since the Jarkiholi incident, six other ministers who had defected to the BJP with Jarkiholi have also gone to court and secured an injunction that restricts at least 68 media houses, social media platforms and others from publishing, circulating or broadcasting any material considered defamatory to them.
