RS polls: BJP fields Kadadi and Gasti from Karnataka
BENGALURU: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday fielded Eranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti as it's candidates for the June 19 Rajya Sabha elections from Karnataka, ignoring the recommendations of the state BJP unit. The state unit had recommended the names of Prabhakar Kore, Ramesh Katti and Prakash Shetty.
The names of the two candidates were announced in a party statement in Delhi.
Election is scheduled on June 19 to fill four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka, represented by Rajeev Gowda and B K Hariprasad of Congress, Prabhakar Kore of BJP and D Kupendra Reddy of JD(S) that will fall vacant on June 25, with their retirement.
June 9 is the last date for filing nominations.
Party sources said both Kadadi and Gasti come from an RSS background.
Kadadi hails from Belagavi, while Gasti is a resident of Raichur. The 54-year-old Eranna Kadadi started his active political career in 1989 and unsuccessfully contested the assembly election from Arambhavi constituency in 1994 on a BJP ticket. He had also served as the Belagavi district Panchayat president in 2010.
Ashok Gasti is a lawyer by profession and former general secretary of the BJP'S OBC Cell.
He is the former chairperson of the Backward Class Development Corporation.
BJP candidate Nabam Rebia files nomination for RS seat in Arunachal
BJP nominee Nabam Rebia on Monday filed his nomination papers for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Arunachal Pradesh, election for which will be held on June 19, a senior official at the state election office here said.
Rebia, who was nominated by the partys central election committee on Sunday as the candidate for the biennial elections to the Upper House of Parliament, submitted his papers to Assembly Secretary K Habung, who has been appointed as the returning officer by the Election Commission, Joint Chief Electoral
Officer D J Bhattacharjee said.
While polling would be held on June 19, if required, the last date of filing nominations has been fixed on June 9 and scrutiny of papers would be held on June 10, Bhattacharjee said.
The last date of withdrawal of papers has been fixed on June 12. The election process should be completed by June 22, the notification said.
Rebia, who represented the state in the Rajya Sabha for two consecutive terms from 1996 to 2002 and 2002 to 2008 as a Congress candidate, had also served the state as Speaker and cabinet minister.
He was the Speaker in the Nabam Tuki-led Congress government and later served as the Urban Development, Town Planning, Housing, Urban Local Bodies and Law and Justice minister in Bjp-led Pema Khandu government.
The Election Commission of India on June 2 had issued notification for holding elections to the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Arunachal Pradesh which will fall vacant on June 23. Mukut Mithi of the Congress is the incumbent Rajya Sabha MP from the northeast state whose tenure will end on June 23.