JD(S) gives tickets to the 'first family' in the first list of candidates for the 2023 K'taka polls

The Janata Dal (Secular) on Monday released its first list of its 93 candidates on Monday who will contest the upcoming Karnataka assembly election, due by May next year.

The list was released after taking consent from former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda, party state president C M Ibrahim said in a statement.

The JD(S) handed tickets to the party's 'first family' in Gowda's son and grandson -- H D Kumaraswamy and Nikhil Kumaraswamy, respectively.

H D Kumaraswamy, former chief minister, will contest from Channapatna where he had won the election defeating local heavyweight C P Yogeshwar in 2018.

Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil will contest from the party bastion Ramanagara. He had unsuccessfully contested the Mandya Lok Sabha election in 2019 and lost to the BJP-backed independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh.

The party is also rewarding sitting MLA G T Devegowda by not only giving him a ticket from Chamundeshwari constituency but also to his son Harish Gowda who will fight from Hunsur.

"We are giving ticket to all the 32 sitting MLAs," a JD(S) media team in charge told PTI.

The party had won 37 seats in the 2018 assembly polls. However, five of them resigned from the Karnataka assembly staging a coup against the Kumaraswamy-led coalition government of the JD(S) and Congress in July 2019.

These five MLAs were among the 18 MLAs disqualified by then Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.

After disqualification, the coalition government collapsed and the BJP came to power. A majority of the disqualified MLAs joined the BJP, contested the bypolls in 2019 December, won the election and became ministers in the new government.

For next year's polls, the list released by the JD(S) includes candidates from almost all the districts of Karnataka from Khanapur in Belagavi in north Karnataka to Hanur in Chamarajanagar district of southern Karnataka.

The party will release the remaining 131 candidates in the coming days, party sources said.

The Karnataka Assembly has a total of 224 MLAs.