After Karnataka polls, focus now shifts to Legislative Council elections

Now that the new government is set to take over after a high-decibel and dramatic elections, parties have now shifted their focus to Biennial Election to the Karnataka Legislative Council from Graduates’ and Teachers’ Constituencies.

The elections are being held to the six constituencies- South West Teachers’ constituency, South Teachers’ constituency, South East Teachers’ Constituency, North East Graduates Constituency, South West Graduates’ Constituency and Bangalore Graduates constituency on June 8.

The six sitting members, will retire on June 21, are Ramesh Babu (South East teachers) Marithibbe Gowda (South Teachers), Capt Ganesh Karnik (South West Teachers) D H Shankara Murthy (South West Graduates), Ramachandra Gowda (Bangalore Graduates) and Amarnath Patil (northeast graduates). The extent of these constituencies are large and comprise several Assembly constituencies. Generally, each constituency will have about 120-200 polling booths.


As on May 16, voters in various constituencies were South Teachers’ 6,481, North East Graduates 45,800, South West Teachers 6,403, South East Teachers 12,381, Bengaluru graduates 16,229 and South West Graduates 21, 898. Hectic political activity has already begun in the constituencies. According to the Election Commission, for the Bangalore Graduates constituency, Devegowda (BJP), Ashwathnarayana C (Independent) and Sri Ramoji Gowda (Congress) are in the fray. For the South East Teacher’s constituency, M Ramappa (Congress) and Dr K Nagraj (Independent) have filed their nominations. To the South Teacher’s constituency, P Somesh (Independent) and Marithibbe Gowda (JD-S) have filed their nominations.

Only K B Srinivas (BJP) has filed his nomination to the Karnataka North East Graduates constituency. Zafrulla Sattar Khan (Independent) has filed his nominations from South West Graduates’ constituency. From South West Teachers’ Constituency, SL Bhojegowda JD(S), Rajendrakumar KP (Independent), Nityananda Shetty (independent), KK Manjunath Kumar (INC), Dr K Shivasharan (independent), Capt. Ganesh Karnik (BJP) and Arun HT (Independent). The post-poll alliance by the Congress and JD(S) during the assembly polls may have an impact on MLC elections.