Bengaluru: A few Congress leaders from Mandya are pressuring Sunitha Puttannaiah, wife of former Pandavapura MLA late KS Puttannaiah, to contest in the Mandya Lok Sabha by-election as a Swaraj India party candidate.
According to sources in the District Congress Committee (DCC), senior party leaders have sent feelers to Sunitha. “These leaders are not interested in supporting the JD(S) candidate LR Shivarame Gowda in the by-election. Instead, they want to field a strong candidate and they feel that Sunitha fits the bill,” informed a senior party leader.
“We can’t support the Swaraj India candidate openly due to the compulsions of the coalition politics. But she can put up a strong fight,” he added.
In Mandya, since the day after the announcement of the by-election date, the JD(S) and Congress leaders have been involved in a war of words. The relationship between the two parties’ leaders are very strained.