Within hours of the Election Commission announcing the conduct of Lok Sabha byelections, B.S. Yeddyurappa, president of the BJP State unit, declared that his son B.Y. Raghavendra would be the party’s candidate from Shivamogga.
Mr. Yeddyurappa won from Shivamogga parliamentary seat in 2014 by a whopping margin of over 3.6 lakh votes against Manjunatha Bhandary of the Congress. The byelection was necessitated following Mr. Yeddyurappa’s election to the State Assembly from Shikaripur recently.
Addressing a programme in Shiralakoppa town on Saturday, Mr. Yeddyurappa announced Mr. Raghavendra’s candidature. Interestingly, K.S. Eshwarappa, the Shivamogga MLA, recently registered his dissent in an indirect manner to this candidature. He had said that the candidate had not been finalised and there were multiple aspirants. Mr. Raghavendra has already begun campaigning informally in Shivamogga.