BJP candidates named for biennial polls to Maha, K'taka legislative councils

New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday announced candidates for biennial election to the legislative council for Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) has approved names of 25 candidates, five for Maharashtra and 20 for Karnataka biennial election to the legislative council.

In a statement, BJP national general secretary Arun Singh, said: "The BJP CEC has approved names of candidates for biennial election to the legislative council for Maharashtra and Karnataka."

Five BJP candidates of Maharashtra legislative council are Amal Mahadeorao Mahadik (Kolhapur), Amrish Rasiklal Patel (Dhule-cum-Nandurbar), Chandrashekhar Krishnarao Bawankule (Nagpur), Vasant Madanlal Khandelwal (Akola-cum-Buldhana-cum-Washim) and Rajhans Dhananjay Singh (Mumbai).

In Karnataka, the BJP has fielded Suja Kushalappa from Kodagu, Kota Srinivas Poojary from Dakshina Kannada, M.K. Pranesh from Chikmagalur, D.S. Arun from Shimoga and Pradeep Shettar from Dharwad.

Mahantesh Kavatgimath is fielded from Belgaum, B.G. Patil from Gulbarga, K.S. Naveen from Chitradurga, Raghu Koutilya from Mysore and Vishwanath from Hassan.

Other saffron party candidates are Ganapathi Ulvekar (Uttara Kannada), Prakash Khandre (Bidar), H.S. Gopinath Reddy (Bangalore), Manju K.R. Pete (Mandya), Dr. K.N. Venugopal (Kolar), Vishwanath A. Banahatti (Raichur), B.M. Narayanaswamy (Bangalore Rural), Y.M. Satish (Bellary), N. Lokesh (Tumkur) and P.H. Pujar (Bijapur).

The Election Commission has announced elections for legislative council seats for Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka and the voting to take place on December 10.

The last date of filling of nominations is November 23 and Scrutiny of nominations paper will be held on November 24. Last date for withdrawal of candidatures is November 26 and polling will be held on December 10.

Counting of votes will take place on December 14.