Bengaluru, June 18: Candidates of all the three major political parties in Karnataka filed their nominations for the June 29 Legislative Council polls on Thursday, the last date to do so. While the BJP has fielded four candidates, Congress two and JD(S) one respectively for the biennial elections to seven seats of the legislative council to be elected by the MLAs.

The election is necessitated as the term of seven MLCs- Naseer Ahmed, Jayamma, M C Venugopal, N S Bose Raju, H M Revanna (all Congress), T A Sharavana (JD(S)) and independent D U Mallikarjuna- will end June 30. Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Election 2020: Polling And Counting of Votes For A Vacant Seat on July 6.

Based on their strength in the Assembly, while BJP is in a position to win four out of seven seats, Congress can win two and JD(S) one. Twenty-eight valid votes of MLAs are required for each candidate to win.

Four BJP candidates MTB Nagaraj, R Shankar, Sunil Vallyapure and Pratap Simha Nayak filed their nominations today, after the party high command announced their names late last night. Nagaraj and Shankar had played a key role in the formation of the BJP government after the coup that led to the collapse of Congress-JD(S) coalition, they had subsequently defected to the saffron party.

While Nagaraj lost the byelections held later, Shankar did not contest in exchange for a Council berth promise. Among the other BJP candidates- Vallyapure is a former MLA from Chincholi and had given up his seat abiding by the party decision to field Avinash Jadhav; while Nayak is a senior party worker and had served as Dakshina Kannada district president.

Sources said while Shankar and Vallyapure have been given MLC tickets as they had given up their Assembly seats, Nagraj was considered as he had faced a defeat during the bypolls because party MP B N Bachhe Gowda's son Sharath contested as a rebel.

However, Nayak's candidature is being seen as BJP high command's choice by party insiders, ignoring the state units recommendation of H Vishwanath, a former JD(S) MLA who had defected to BJP. Two Congress candidates- senior party leader B K Hariprasad and incumbent Naseer Ahmed also filed their nominations today at the office of Legislative Assembly Secretary M K Vishalakshi, who is also the returning officer for the polls.

Hariprasad was fielded as a candidate by the party on Wednesday, even as his tenure in Rajya Sabha is to end on June 25; while Naseer Ahmed, who is retiring as MLC on June 30 is seeking another term. JD(S) has fielded Govindaraju from Koral as the party candidate for the MLC polls.

Incumbent MLC T A Sharavana and outgoing Rajya Sabha member Kupendra Reddy were seen as the prime aspirants for the ticket. JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said Govindaraju was chosen as it would help organise and strengthen the party in Kolar and Chikkaballapura region.

An independent candidate PC Krishnegowda also filed his papers today.

While scrutiny of nominations will take place on Friday, June 22 is the last date for withdrawal of candidature.