BENGALURU: Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah on Friday will embark on a two-day visit to Karnataka and is set to take out a roadshow in Devanahalli on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The BJP leader will also take stock of the party's preparations for the May 10 Assembly elections in the state. This is Shah's first visit to the state after announcement of poll schedule on March 29.
According to his schedule of events, Shah will hold a roadshow in the taluk headquarters town of Devanahalli, the birthplace of 18th century Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan, in Bengaluru Rural district in the afternoon. Shah would hold a meeting here with senior party functionaries regarding poll preparations in the evening, BJP sources said.
On Saturday, he is scheduled to attend an event organised by a private news channel before flying back to New Delhi. In Devanahalli, the Union minister will campaign for the BJP's Pilla Munishamappa, who is pitted against sitting JD(S) MLA L N Narayanaswamy and Congress candidate K H Muniyappa, a former Union minister and seven-time MP.
Muniyappa, who was defeated in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, is foraying into the Assembly elections for the first time. In the 2018 Assemblhy election, the fight was mainly between Narayanswamy (86,966 votes) and Venkataswamy (69,956) of the Congress. BJP candidate K Nagesh was a distant third with 9,820 votes.
Over 3,600 candidates have filed a total of 5,102 nominations for the May 10 Assembly polls in Karnataka till Thursday, the last day for filing of the papers, election officials said here. The process of filing nominations papers began on April 13 with the election notification being issued. Of the total nominations, 4,710 were filed by 3,327 male candidates and 391 nominations were by 304 female candidates. One nomination has been filed by an "other gender" candidate, the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka said in a Thursday night statement.
