Two Congress party members, Amrith Shenoy, and Shanul Haq were expelled from the party for contesting against the official candidates that it fielded in two Karnataka Lok Sabha seats that are Udupi-Chickmagalur and Bidar parliamentary seats jointly with the ruling coalition partner Janta Dal-Secular (JD-S).
Shanul Haq is an independent candidate from Bidar where the party’s state Working president, Eshwar Khandre is the official nominee and Amrith Shenoy is an independent candidate from Udupi-Chickmagalur against the Janta Dal Secular candidate Pramod Madhwaraj.
Dinesh Gundu, the state Congress President said that the leaders and cadres in every party are supposed to campaign for the official candidates who are fielded jointly by the parties. Any Anti-party activities including campaigning against them, revolt against any official candidate or dissidence shall be in regard to action against them.
The Congress party is facing revolts in Hassan Mandya and Tumkur Constituencies. The party leaders are not willing to campaign for the JD(S) candidates.
In the Udupi-Chickmagalur, according to the poll -sharing arrangement of the Congress and the Janta Dal-Secular, Congress will be contesting on 21 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state. On the remaining 7 seats, Janta Dal-Secular will contest the elections.
Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has fielded the incumbent Shobha Karandlaje and Bhagwanth Khuba from the Udupi-Chickmagalur and Bidar seats.
Eshwar Khandre will fight the elections against Bhagwanth Khuba and Janta Dal Secular candidate Pramod Madhwaraj will fight against incumbent Shobha Karandlaje(BJP).
Udupi-Chickmagalur will go to polls in the first phase on April 18. Bidar will go for the Lok Sabha Polls in the second phase on April 23. The counting of the votes will take place on May 23 and the results will be announced on the same day.