BENGALURU, 30 MARCH

After days of speculation, infighting and debate, Congress high command on Saturday announced KV Gowtham as its candidate for Kolar parliamentary seat.

Hailing from Kolar, Gowtham is the son of former Bengaluru mayor KV Vijaykumar and is Bengaluru Central district Congress committee president.

The party had announced candidates for all 27 Lok Sabha seats and had kept the Kolar ticket pending following high drama by MLAs who went to the State legislature to submit their resignations in opposition to the ticket to Chikka Peddanna, son-in-law of Minister for Food KH Muniyappa.

They argued that Muniyappa’s daughter Roopkala Shashidhar was an MLA and had been made Chairperson of Karnataka State Handicrafts Corporation and it would be unfair to give a ticket to his family again.

With the announcement of the candidate for the Kolar seat, the Congress has completed the announcement of candidates for all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the State.