BANGALORE, August 20: AICC general secretary B.K. Hariprasad filed his nomination papers for the bypoll to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the Karnataka Legislative Assembly constituency on Monday just before the deadline for filing the nominations ended.
Interestingly, RTI Activist T.J. Abraham too entered the fray as an Independent on Monday. With this, there are a total of three candidates for the bypoll as already a Tamil Nadu-based Independent candidate, K. Padmarajan, had filed his nomination on August 12.
According to the norms, the candidates’ names have to be proposed by 10 MLAs. But the two Independents are believed to have not submitted the complete list of 10 proposers along with signatures. Mr. Abraham told The Hindu that he had submitted a list of 10 proposing MLAs of whom five had signed. He claimed that the remaining five MLAs would sign the forms before the beginning of scrutiny of nominations set for Tuesday.
Official sources made it clear that any failure to get the list of 10 proposing MLAs with signatures would lead to rejection of the nominations when the scrutiny will be taken up on Tuesday. “We go step by step. Today, nomination papers have been filed. The issues such as whether the set of proposers has been filed along with signatures will be looked into only during the time of scrutiny,” official sources said. This would mean that Mr. Hariprasad is almost set for a unanimous election and the contest may not be dragged till the level of polling.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Ministers K.J. George, T.B. Jayachandra and Umashree accompanied Mr. Hariprasad when he filed his nomination papers.
