Ticket aspirants keep their options open in poll-bound State

Bengaluru: The political scenario in Karnataka is now in a fluid state, all parties and their ticket aspirants are in total confusion over the choice of candidates for many constituencies in Karnataka. The push for tickets from Congress and BJP is the most intense by the aspirants and in some constituencies, the demand for tickets is so intense that there are more than a dozen of aspirants from a single party. Puttur Assembly Constituency is one of them.

The Congress party has the most number of aspirants in the state for 224 constituencies with over 3000 aspirants. At least 60 per cent of them have already paid the application money of Rs. 2 lakh prescribed by the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. Initially, many aspirants found the fees on the higher side but many of them did not mind it at the later stage, following the chances of getting a ticket to contest from it.

In a classic case, the Puttur Assembly Constituency has 13 aspirants including a former MLA, block presidents, ZP leaders and members. "I remember the BJP had put out a narrative stating that the Congress will find it difficult to get a candidate to contest from many constituencies in the state, but now there are more aspirants for the Congress tickets than in the BJP," says an aspirant wishing anonymity. It is true that both BJP and Congress are keeping their cadres and leaders guessing about the candidate and soon both parties will run out of time to prepare for the elections. According to senior legislators who have won multiple times from both parties in the state - it needs not less than 75-90 days to prepare for a candidate. They felt to be doubly sure of a credible performance in the elections the candidate list must be announced at least 100 days prior to the polling.

"It shows the strength of the party, its leaders and cadres, it demonstrates how much a party trusts in its candidate and the level of confidence among the cadres. But present-day politics depends too much on the caste and community equations and the political parties are not able to gauge the undercurrents the cast equations throw out. The parties also tend to overlook merit and calibre of a candidate in the melee of catering to the cast and community sentiments. This is not just in BJP but also in the Congress and JDS who swear by secularism" a senior political observer told Hans India.

In the case of JD(S), there is no need for the party to delay the announcement of the candidate list, most probably it might not contest in more than 60-75 seats seriously and about 60 per cent of its candidates are just dummy candidates, where the candidates will not put up a fight or spend money and the party does not fund the candidate.

The leadership is shrewd in that they would like to win only 35-45 seats and be a decisive force to reckon with in the case of a hung assembly. The recent muddle over the candidature of Bhavani Revanna from the Hassan assembly constituency has raked up a new controversy and rebranded the party a 'party run by a family' earlier the JDS was able to shun this brand by appointing CM Ibrahim as the state president.

The political observers emphasise that national parties like BJP and Congress to come out of their caste and community consideration and rise above them by fielding capable candidates who are chosen on the basis of merit and calibre. The book 'A heartful of burdens' written by the late TN Seshan the former Chief Election Commissioner who drove an electoral reforms era has stressed on the need of political parties to rise above their usual politics.