On April 12th, 2023, Wednesday, the ruling BJP announced its second list of 23 candidates and denied tickets to 7 sitting MLAs for the Assembly election in Karnataka which will be held on May 10th. A little over 24 hours after announcing its first list of 189 candidates, BJP immediately announced its second list for the same. The list denied tickets to seven sitting MLAs, including Channagiri MLA Madal Virupakshappa, who is presently in jail on the charges of corruption. There are 2 women in the list too while there were 8 women in the first list released by BJP.  

On Wednesday, the list that was released by the party did not include the names of Shivamogga city , where the former Minister and sitting MLA K S Eshwarappa has announced his retirement from politics and Hubli-Dharwad Central segment, from where Jagdish Shettar, former Minister wants to contest. Shettar has been asked by the party’s top brass to make a way for the youngsters, but he has asserted that he wants to contest for the last time. “The BJP’s Central Election Committee has marked the names of 23 candidates, in the second list, for the result-oriented general elections to Karnataka’s legislative assembly,” said BJP’s official Twitter handle. 

A total of 7 sitting MLAs could not make it to the list. As per the second list, Nagaraja Chabbi who recently joined BJP after resigning from Congress has been given the ticket to contest from the Kalghatgi constituency. The second list of candidates includes 4 from Scheduled Caste, one from Scheduled Tribe, and two female candidates, also there were some new faces too. The MLA M P Kumaraswamy was dropped off from the list whereas Deepak Doddaiah was named in his place. The daughter of ex-MLA Y Sampangi, Ashwini Sampangi will contest from the Kolar gold fields. In the place of MLA Sukumar Shetty, BJP has given the ticket to Gururaj Gantihole from the Byndoor constituency. 

The ruling party has so far announced candidates for 212 out of 224 seats in the assembly elections. The names of the candidates for the 12 constituencies are still remaining, to be declared by BJP which includes constituencies of Hubli Dharwad Central, Shivamogga, Mahadevpura, and Krishnaraja. The voting of the elections will be held in a single phase on May 10th and the counting is scheduled for May 13th.