The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The BJP has finally put out names of 212 candidates who will contest the forthcoming Karnataka polls on May 10. There is trouble amongst the many factions within the party fighting to dominate the distribution of tickets. The intense jockeying and infighting had delayed the release of the lists earlier this week.
More than 24 tickets have been assigned to candidates who come from ten political families in the BJP’s list so far. This includes father-son, brothers and others in certain families.
The list of 212 candidates who would be contesting as BJP candidates in the assembly elections to be held on May 10 reveals how deep ‘parivarwad’ runs.
The Bellary brothers, mining honcho Gali Janardhana Reddy’s brothers Somashekhar Reddy (Bellary City) and Karunakar Reddy (Harappanahalli) are BJP candidates.
The controversial Jarkiholi brothers – Ramesh and Balachandra – have both received BJP tickets. “Late minister Umesh Katti’s family got two tickets – his son Nikhil Katti and brother Ramesh Katti,” reports Deccan Herald.
The newspaper lists a number of other such instances. For instance, Avinash Jadhav is the BJP candidate from Chincholi; his father is Gulbarga MP Umesh Jadhav. State tourism minister Anand Singh is the sitting MLA from Vijayanagar; this year’s candidate is his son Siddharth Singh.
The Congress, to rub in the point about the pronouncements of being ‘anti-dynasty’ versus the facts, has drawn up a ‘list’ of 34 BJP “dynasts”.
“One of every six candidates announced by the BJP is blessed with Parivarvaad,” AICC spokesperson Gourav Vallabh is quoted as saying.
BJP general secretary N. Ravi Kumar was defensive about his party’s decision to allot tickets as they have done. “I agree there are some instances in BJP where the children of a leader have been given tickets. But look at the diversity in the BJP when it comes to national leadership positions and compare that to Congress or JD(S),” he said, according to Deccan Herald.