Bengaluru, 28 March

DK Suresh, who was the only Congress candidate to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, and JD(S) MP from Hassan Prajwal Revanna on Thursday filed their nominations for the 26 April polls.

The 57-year-old younger brother of Deputy Chief Minister and State Congress Chief DK Shivakumar -- seeking reelection from Bangalore Rural -- was accompanied among others by Ramanagara district in-charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy.  

Revanna, grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, filed his papers from Hassan.

In Bangalore Rural segment, Suresh defeated former MLA Anitha Kumaraswamy in the 2013 bypoll after her husband and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy resigned from Lok Sabha following his win in the Assembly polls that year, and was re-elected in the 2014 and 2019 General Elections.

The BJP-JD(S) combine has fielded noted cardiac surgeon C N Manjunath, who is the son-in-law of Deve Gowda and brother-in-law of former Chief Minister and state JD(S) President H D Kumaraswamy, in Bangalore Rural. Manjunath, who is contesting on BJP symbol, had headed the State-owned Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research for 17 years before retiring in January this year.

Shivakumar expressed confidence about Suresh's victory and said electoral fights with the Deve Gowda family are not new. “We have fought many elections against the Deve Gowda family. We have got a woman elected against Deve Gowda. I have faced Kumaraswamy in an election. Suresh had won an election against Anita Kumaraswamy, who was the joint candidate of BJP and JD(S). We defeated Anita Kumaraswamy by a huge margin even when I was not a minister in the previous Siddaramaiah government. People have been supporting us ever since,” he said.

In Hassan, the 33-year-old Prajwal Revanna defeated BJP’s A Manju in the 2019 Lok Sabha election with a margin of over 1.40 lakh votes. Hassan is the home turf of Deve Gowda. The Congress has named 31-year-old Shreyas M Patel, the grandson of former Minister late G Puttaswamy Gowda. Deve Gowda and Puttaswamy Gowda had fought against each other in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the past.

Patel had lost the Holenarsipur seat in Assembly polls last year by about 3,000 votes to Deve Gowda's son, former Minister and five-time MLA HD Revanna. Puttaswamy Gowda and his daughter-in-law SG Anupama too had contested against Revanna in the past. "This Lok Sabha election marks the silver jubilee of the 'Clash of the Titans' -- Puttaswamy Gowda and Deve Gowda -- in the 1999 Lok Sabha election, which the former won," a political observer noted.