Bengaluru, 22 Mar

After several rounds of discussion amid stiff competition for the party tickets, Congress on Sunday announced Umesh Meti and Samarth Mallikarjun as the party candidates for Assembly by-polls to Bagalkot and Davangere South assembly constituencies.

Bypolls for the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies were necessitated following the deaths of Congress MLAs HY Meti and Shamanur Shivashankarappa, respectively.

The Congress gave tickets to family members of the deceased legislators in both constituencies. While Umesh Meti is the son of HY Meti, Samarth Mallikarjun is the grandson of Shamanur Shivashankarappa.

Samarth's father, SS Mallikarjun, is a minister in the Siddaramaiah-led Cabinet and is in charge of Davangere district, while his mother, Prabha Mallikarjun, is a Member of Parliament from the region.

Following the approval of its Central Election Committee, the BJP has already announced Veerabhadrayya Charantimath from Bagalkot and Srinivas T Dasakariyappa from Davangere South as candidates.

The last date for filing nominations is 23 March, and elections will be held on 9 April.

AICC General Secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, held a series of discussions in Bengaluru over the last two days, including with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar, who is also the party president in the state, regarding candidates for the two seats.

The meetings proceeded even as ticket aspirants Samarth and Sadiq Pailwan filed their nominations from the Davangere South Assembly constituencies on Friday, despite the party not having officially announced the candidates.

After filing his papers, Samarth said he filed nominations because it was an auspicious day and that he would file another set of papers after the party officially announces the ticket to him.

While veteran Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa's family and supporters demanded that his grandson Samarth be fielded for the Davangere South seat, there was a strong demand from Muslims for the ticket, as the community has a significant presence in the segment.

Some factions within Congress that have considerable clout in the region opposed giving the ticket to the Shamanur family.

In Bagalkot, although there were indications that the ticket would go to Meti's family, strong disagreement existed among his sons and daughters because each one intended to contest, party sources said.

Meanwhile, another strong aspirant from Congress, Govind Ballari, filed his nomination on Friday, expressing hope that the party would give him a ticket.

In Bagalkot, Meti defeated BJP's Charantimath by a margin of 5,878 votes and in Davangere South, Shivashankarappa defeated BJP's BG Ajay Kumar by a margin of 27,888 votes, in the 2023 Assembly polls.