Confident of winning at least five to six Lok Sabha seats just a couple of days ago, the Janata Dal (Secular) had to scout for candidates before the deadline for filing of nominations.
The party’s ‘wait and grab’ policy to woo displeased leaders from other political parties and field them as its candidates did not yield results this time, though it was successful in roping in V. Dhananjaya Kumar, who was already out of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Mahima Patel, son of former Chief Minister J.H. Patel from the Congress. They were fielded from Udupi-Chikmaglur and Davangere constituencies respectively.
It had planned to play a key role in the event of a fractured verdict by winning as many seats as possible, and had kept its doors open for party hoppers.
For this very reason, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy was made to contest reluctantly from Chickballapur.
After Congress leaders C.K. Jaffer Sharief and H.T. Sangliana desisted from joining the JD(S), the party had a tough time finding candidates for the Mysore and Bangalore Central constituencies. Finally, it fielded former High Court judge K. Chandrashekharaiah, whose appointment as the Upalokayukta was quashed by the High Court, from Mysore.
For Bangalore Central, it had to be content with fielding Nandini Alva, wife of late Jeevaraj Alva, who filed her papers on Wednesday. Sources in the party told The Hindu that the final list of 12 candidates was not ready till late Tuesday night and the party’s district unit presidents were given ‘B’ forms to be handed over to candidates chosen by them. It has given the Dakshina Kannada seat to ally Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
Though the party finally released the list on Wednesday, it did not announce the name of the candidate from Koppal.
With confusion about the caste certificate of its official candidate K. Keshav still persisting, it has fielded zilla panchayat member S.B. Munivenkatappa from Kolar Lok Sabha (Reserved) constituency as a precautionary measure.
