Bengaluru, 23 March

BJP national general secretary and Karnataka in-charge Radha Mohan Das Agarwal on Saturday said the party's ally JD(S) will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Mandya, Hassan and Kolar.

He also said the BJP and JD(S) workers will cooperate and work for each other's victory. "We are not fighting alone...We are fighting it with JD(S). We have given Mandya, Hassan and Kolar seats to the JD(S). When we have given these seats to the JD(S), we too are at loss. You will see us (BJP and JD(S)) fighting this battle shoulder to shoulder," Agarwal said at a party event here.

The BJP has released the list of candidates for 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka. It is yet to release the list of other seats it would be contesting.

Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly R Ashoka said the ball is now in the BJP central parliamentary board's court and its decision will be final with regard to Mandya.

Mandya constituency was the bone of contention between the two parties and the announcement over the list of seats was delayed due to the alleged adamant stance of the sitting MP Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent. Sumalatha, multilingual film actress and wife of eminent Kannada actor-turned-politician late Ambareesh, contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate and defeated Nikhil Kumaraswamy, grandson of former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda and son of former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy. Sumalatha is yet to reveal her plans. However, she has been insisting on contesting from Mandya, which she terms as her base.

Sources in the JD(S) said the party had decided to field HD Kumaraswamy from Mandya. The party was also insistent about fielding a candidate from the constituency as it has a strong base in the district given the fact that there is a substantial Vokkaliga population, which the JD(S)' first family belongs to. The JD(S) had won all seven seats in Mandya district in the 2018 Assembly elections. However, its lost ground in 2023 Assembly polls when it won only one seat while the Congress emerged victorious in six segments.