The candidates from the three mainstream parties – Congress, JD(S) and BJP – submitted their nominations to the Deputy Commissioner of Mysuru Bagadi Gautham, who is also the Returning Officer for the dual-member Mysuru-Chamarajanagar Legislative Council seat from local authorities’ constituency on Tuesday.
While the names of Congress candidate D. Thimmaiah and JD(S) candidate C.N. Manje Gowda were cleared by their respective party leadership only on Monday, the BJP had cleared Raghu Kautilya as its candidate late last week.
Mr. Thimmaiah, a retired district health officer, who replaced incumbent MLC R. Dharmasena as the Congress nominee, marched to the DC’s office from the party office along with party leaders and workers to submit the nomination. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Working President R. Dhruvanarayan, former Minister H.C. Mahadevappa, MLAs H.P. Manjunath and Anil Chikkamadu, and Mysuru District Congress President Vijaykumar accompanied Mr. Thimmaiah.
C.N. Manje Gowda, former ZP member, Mysuru, who joined the JD(S) only on Monday, went to the Congress office on Tuesday and submitted his resignation from the party’s primary membership. He later went to the DC’s office along with former Minister S.R. Mahesh and MLAs Ashwin Kumar and K. Mahadev, besides several party workers to submit his nomination.
BJP candidate Raghu Kautilya, who is also the Chairperson of D. Devaraj Urs Backward Class Development Corporation, too filed his papers on Tuesday, the last date for filing nominations. He was accompanied by Minister for Co-operation S.T. Somashekar, Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) Chairman H.V. Rajeev, MLA L. Nagendra and other party leaders.
Scrutiny of nominations is scheduled for November 24 while the last date for withdrawal of nominations is November 26. Polling will be held between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on December 10 while counting of votes will be taken up on December 14.
Interestingly, both the sitting MLCs R. Dharmasena and Sandesh Nagaraj, whose term ends on January 5, 2022, were not among the candidates, who filed their nominations. About 6,500 members of gram panchayats, town panchayats, town municipal councils, city municipal councils and Mysuru City Corporation are expected to exercise their franchise in the preferential pattern of voting.
