The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced its third list of candidates for November 30 Assembly elections in Karnataka.
Prominent among the 35 candidates are former ministers Krishna Yadav, J. Chittaranjan Das and P. Babu Mohan, Marri Shashidhar Reddy and NVSS Prabhakar.
The Central Election Committee of the BJP cleared the third list. With this the party has announced 88 seats out of 119-Assembly seats.
The saffron party had announced the first list of 52 candidates on October 22 while the second list had just one name.
The names of state BJP president and Union minister G. Kishan Reddy, MP K. Laxman, actor-turned-politician Vijayashanti were missing.
Krishna Yadav, who resigned from Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) to join the BJP recently, will contest from Amberpet constituency in the state capital.
Kishan Reddy had unsuccessfully contested from Amberpet in 2018 but was elected to Lok Sabha from Secunderabad in 2019.
Krishna Yadav was a minister during the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) rule in the united Andhra Pradesh from 1999 to 2001.
He was arrested in September 2003 by the Maharashtra Police for his alleged involvement in a multi-crore stamp paper scam. He was released in 2006.
In November 2012, Yadav rejoined the TDP but after the formation of Telangana state, he switched loyalties to the TRS (now BRS).
Chittaranjan Das, who recently defected to BJP after BRS denied him ticket, will contest from Jadcherla. In 2019, he resigned from Congress to join TRS.
Marri Shashidhar Reddy, who had resigned from Congress to join BJP last year, has been named as the candidate from Sanathnagar, a constituency he represented in the past.
Shashidhar Reddy, son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Marri Chenna Reddy, was elected from Sanathnagar in 1992, 1994, 2004 and 2009.
Actor-turned-politician P. Babu Mohan will contest from Andole (SC) constituency. He had quit TRS to join BJP in 2018 after he was denied ticket to contest Assembly election.
The veteran actor, known for comedy roles in Telugu films, entered politics by joining TDP in the 1990s. He was first elected from Andole in 1998 by-elections and retained the seat in 1999.
He served as minister for labour in Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet in the then unified Andhra Pradesh.
He lost the election from the same constituency in 2004 and 2009. In 2014, he quit TDP to join TRS and was elected to the first Telangana Assembly from Andole.
BJP state vice-president NVSS Prabhakar will contest again from Uppal.