Revenue Minister R. Ashok has said that the BJP is considering a member from former Union Minister Suresh Angadi’s family to contest the Belagavi bypolls.
Speaking at Sambra airport, he said the State leadership had forwarded three names to the Central election committee.
Sources in the party said that earlier it was decided that the party will not field any member of the Angadi family. “This was in line with the party’s stand against politics of succession. This opinion was further cemented after senior leaders expressed displeasure at some of Mr. Angadi’s followers putting up banners in the name of ‘Suresh Angadi Fans Association’ during the party executive committee meeting in Belagavi last year,” said a senior member of the party’s state election committee.
However, the demand that ticket should rest with the former Union Minister’s family have been many and long standing. Lingaraj Patil, former Karnataka oil federation chairman and relative of Mr. Angadi, asked Nalin Kumar Kateel, party State unit president, and other leaders to nominate Mangala Angadi, the former Minister’s wife, or other members of the family.
Ramesh Katti, District Central Cooperative Bank chairman and brother of Umesh Katti, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, said he would exit from the race if Angadi’s family member was to be chosen. Prakash Hukkeri, Congress leader, hit the headlines by saying he would campaign for the BJP if Angadi’s relatives were nominated.
The party’s Raitha Morcha wing brought in Shraddha Angadi-Shettar, the former Union Minister’s daughter and daughter-in-law of Jagadish Shettar, Industries Minister, to attend a farmers’ meeting a few weeks ago. However, no leader has openly acknowledged that their names were on the shortlist of candidates.
