Bengaluru: It is official now. KPCC president DK Shivakumar wants only Kusuma Ravi, wife of late IAS officer DK Ravi as the party candidate for the RR Nagar by-election.

By-election is necessitated in RR Nagar following the resignation of incumbent MLA Muniratna who quit Congress to join the BJP as part of Operation Kamala.

According to the sources in the KPCC, only Kusuma Ravi’s name has been recommended to AICC for the approval.

However, it is said that Kusuma Ravi has changed her name and taken her maiden name Kusuma Hanumantarayappa. This move has been reportedly done after her late husband DK Ravi’s mother warned her against using her son’s name for the elections.

Hanumantarayappa is a local Congress leader. As Kusuma belongs to the Vokkaliga community, she is expecting an easy win in the Constituency, which has a large number of Vokkaliga voters.

It may be recalled that upright and honest IAS officer DK Ravi had committed suicide on March 16, 2015, at his residence in Koramangala and the death had caused an uproar across the state as there were speculations that he was murdered.