Mangaluru : Veteran Congress leader Harikrishna Bantwal and BJP leader Sanjeev Matandoor filed their nominations on Wednesday, the last day to enter the fray for the elections to the Legislative Council.

A total of 14 candidates have now filed 24 sets of nominations for two seats.

The details of the candidates who have filed the papers are Srinivas Poojary (BJP), K Prathapchandra Shetty (Congress), A M Ismail (Independent), Praveenchandra (JDS), Jayaprakash Hegde (Independent), Bhujanga Shetty (Independent), K Harikrishna Bantwal (Independent), K Harish Kumar (Congress), Shankar A Kundar (Independent), S Prakash Shetty (JDS), Alphonse Frank (SDPI), M Iqbal (SDPI), Sanjeeva Matandoor (BJP) and Abdul Jaleel K (Independent).

The term of MLCs elected from the local bodies constituency of Dakshina Kannada – Kota Srinivas Poojary (BJP) and Prathapchandra Shetty (Congress) – will end on January 5.

The nominations will be scrutinised on December 10 and the last date to withdraw nominations is December 12.

With Harikrishna Bantwal filing the nomination papers on Wednesday, the number of rebels in the Congress has gone up to three (Jayaprakash Hegde and Bhujanga Shetty are the other two).

On the other hand, with Sanjeev Matandoor – a BJP member – too filing papers on Wednesday, it will not be a cakewalk for the official Congress candidate, unlike the earlier elections.

6,559 voters

The total number of voters in the constituency is 6,559, of which 3,191 are males and 3,368 are females. The constituency has 410 polling booths. The number of voters in Dakshina Kannada district is 3,844 and in Udupi district is 2,715. There are 166 polling booths in Udupi district and 244 polling booths in Dakshina Kannada district.

The elections to the Council from Dakshina Kannada local bodies constituency will be held on December 27 between 8 am and 4 pm. The counting of votes will take place on December 30.