The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) unveiled its first list of candidates for the Karnataka Assembly election 2023 on Friday. Along with the names of candidates, the party also released the names of star campaigners.
Uttam Raosaheb Patil, Mansoor Saheb Bilagi, Zameer Ahmad Inamdar, Kulappa Chavan, Hari R, R Shankar, Suguna K, SYM Masood Foujdar and Rehana Rao are among the nine contenders on the list.
Karnataka Assembly Election 2023 will be conducted on 10 May, with only one phase of voting. Meanwhile, the vote will be counted on 13 May.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Congress unveiled its fifth list of candidates for the Karnataka Assembly elections, with Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan running against incumbent Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from the Shiggaon Assembly constituency.
The grand old party announced a list of 40 A-list candidates for the Karnataka Assembly elections on Wednesday. The list of star campaigners included Congress heavyweights such as national president Mallikarjun Kharge, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, state chief DK Shivakumar, LoP Siddaramaiah, Shashi Tharoor, former BJP leader and deputy chief minister Jagadish Shettar and others.
Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, general secretary in-charge, Communication, Jairam Ramesh, Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and former Maharastra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan are among the other prominent names on the party's list of campaigners.
In a major setback, several BJP officials recently resigned from the party after being refused election tickets.
Arvind Chauhan, the General Secretary of the BJP Kalaburagi District Yuva Morcha and a former Zilla Panchayat member, resigned on Tuesday. Other saffron party defectors include Mudigere MLA M P Kumaraswamy, Haveri legislator Nehru Olekar and Angara S.