Gird your loins for by-polls, Siddu tells Cabinet

NT Correspondent Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday held a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues and called on them to strive to ensure that the ruling Congress won all three by-elections due on November 13. The Cabinet meeting was held at the CM’s home office Krishna in Bengaluru on Sunday. The CM’s office said that the by-elections, caste census and reservation demands from various communities were on the agenda in the meeting. The three Assembly seats going to polls are Sandur in Ballari district, Shiggaon in Haveri district and Channapatna in Ramanagar district.

The three seats were vacated because the sitting MLAs contested Lok Sabha elections and won. Sandur was represented by Congressman E Tukaram who contested from the Ballari Lok Sabha seat and defeated BJP candidate B Sriramulu. Shiggaon was held by former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai but contested the Haveri Lok Sabha segment and won against Congress candidate Anandaswamy Gaddadevaramath. The BJP has since named Bangaru Hanumantu as the Sandur candidate and Basavaraj Bommai’s son Bharat will contest from Shiggaon. Channapatna was represented by now Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy.

However, he contested from the Mandya Lok Sabha seat on the insistence of the high command of ally BJP. He defeated Congressman Venkataramane Gowda and then vacated the Channapatna seat. JD(S) Karnataka wing youth president Nikhil Kumaraswamy is likely to contest Channapatna. However, Congress is yet to name any candidates. The last date to file nominations for the by-elections in the state is October 25. The seats go to polls on November 13 and the results will be out by November 23. “The three by-elections are very important. We should win all three. For this to happen, everyone should fulfill the responsibilities they’ve taken on in an adequate manner,” Siddaramaiah told the Cabinet.

The CM added that the State government was open to tabling of the caste census or the Kantharaju Commission report, internal reservation for Scheduled Caste (SC) as per the recommendations of the Sadashiva Commission report and the demand by Panchamasali Lingayats to be included in the 2A sub-category in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) matrix, which would net the community 15 per cent quota.