K’taka polls: All 7 candidates declared elected unopposed

BENGALURU: All seven candidates in the fray for the elections to as many number of seats on Monday declared elected “unopposed” in Karnataka legislative council. Karnataka legislative assembly Secretary M K Visalakshi, who is also the returning officer for the polls, declared the unanimous election of BJP'S MTB Nagaraj, R Shankar, Sunil Vallyapure and Pratap Simha Nayak, Congress' B K Hariprasad and Naseer Ahmed, and JD(S)' Govinda Raju to the legislative council.

All the seven candidates were declared elected as they were the only candidates in the fray for election to as many number of seats as on June 22, the last date for withdrawal of nominations, an official statement said.

The voting for biennial elections to seven seats of the legislative council to be elected by the MLAS was scheduled for June 29.

The election was necessitated as the term of seven MLCS- Naseer Ahmed, Jayamma, M C Venugopal, N S Bose Raju, H M Revanna (all Congress), T A Sharavana (JD(S)) and independent D U Mallikarjuna- will end June 30.

Based on their strength in the Assembly, while BJP could win four out of seven seats, Congress could win two and JD(S) one.

Twenty-eight valid votes of MLAS were required for each candidate to win.

However, with no party fielding additional candidates against each other and deciding to contest only on the number of seats they could win based on their strength in the assembly, the election of seven candidates was unopposed, without necessitating the voting process.