Race within Congress hots up for Jayanagar ticket

A four-corner contest is brewing within the Congress for the Jayanagar Assembly constituency ticket as four senior party leaders have thrown their weight behind candidates of their choice.

Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy wants his daughter Sowmya Reddy to get the ticket, while party veteran K Rahman Khan wants to field his son Mansoor Ali Khan. KPCC president
G Parameshwara is batting for his aide M C Venugopal. Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, is supporting the candidature of realtor
U B Venkatesh.

Venkatesh is the MD of Vishala Property Developers, which has stakes in the Royal Meenakshi Mall on Bannerghatta Road. He was also chairperson of Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Limited. Venkatesh was in the race for the Jayanagar ticket in the 2013 polls, but lost out to Venugopal.

Jayanagar is one among Bengaluru's well-developed and affluent localities and has 1.95 lakh voters. Reddy has declared that Sowmya would contest the polls only if she got the Jayanagar ticket. Mansoor hopes to get the ticket on the basis of a large number of minority voters in the constituency. Parameshwara wants to field Venugopal, who currently heads the party's OBC cell, despite him having lost the 2013 polls to Jayanagar MLA Vijaykumar by over 12,000 votes.