The Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for chief minister, BS Yedyurappa, will contest from his bastion Shikaripura while veterans KS Eshwarappa and Jagdish Shettar will seek victories from Shivamogga and Hubli-Dharwad– Central, respectively, according to the first list of candidates for the Karnataka assembly elections that the party released on Monday.

The BJP list for the election in Karantaka, which goes to polls on May 12, contained 72 names and had few surprises.

The only exception was that B Sriramulu, a close aide of disgraced mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, has been given the ticket from Molkalmuru instead of his stronghold Bellary, from where he had contested both in 2013 and 2008.

Sriramulu’s supporters are upset by the decision as is the incumbent MLA S Thippeawamy of the BJP.

The list also contained names of defectors such as Malikayya Guttedar and AS Patil Nadahalli, candidates from Afzalpur and Muddebihal respectively, who moved to the party from the Congress recently.

Mallikarjun Khuba, Manappa Vajjal and Shivraj Patil joined the BJP from the Janata Dal (Secular) have also bagged BJP tickets.

The BJP has retained nearly half of the candidates of the 28 consituencies in Bengaluru \. Candidates such as Sureshkumar, Arvinda Limbavali, V Somanna, Satish Reddy, BN Vijaykumar will again contest from their respective seats.