Bengaluru: Incumbent MP D K Suresh, who was the only Congress candidate to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, on Thursday filed his nomination from Bangalore Rural constituency for the April 26 polls.

The 57-year-old younger brother of Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress chief D K Shivakumar was accompanied among others by Ramanagara district in-charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy.

Suresh defeated former MLA Anitha Kumaraswamy in the 2013 bypoll after her husband and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy resigned from Lok Sabha following his win in the Assembly polls that year, and was re-elected in the 2014 and 2019 general elections.

The BJP-JD(S) combine has fielded noted cardiac surgeon C N Manjunath, who is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and brother-in-law of former Chief Minister and state JD(S) President H D Kumaraswamy, in this Vokkaliga-dominated segment.

Manjunath, who is contesting on BJP symbol, had headed the state-owned Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research for 17 years before retiring in January this year.

Shivakumar expressed confidence about Suresh’s victory and said electoral fights with the Deve Gowda family are not new.

“We have fought many elections against the Deve Gowda family. We have got a woman elected against Deve Gowda. I have faced Kumaraswamy in an election. Suresh had won an election against Anita Kumaraswamy, who was the joint candidate of BJP and JDS.

We defeated Anita Kumaraswamy by a huge margin even when I was not a minister in the previous Siddaramaiah government. People have been supporting us ever since,” he said.