The Bhartaiya Janata Party on Thursday declared the names of the 136 candidates who will contest the forthcoming Karnataka assembly elections.

BJP general secretary Anant Kumar said that 44 sitting MLAs have been given tickets. "We have given tickets to 80 new faces, which include those who have recently joined the party," he said.

The meeting, where the list of candidates was finalized, was attended by party president Rajnath Singh, senior leader Arun Jaitley and all office bearers of the state BJP unit.

Chief minister designate B S Yeddyurappa, who has won the elections five times in a row, will contest from Shikaripura constitutency. S R Bommai's son Basavaraj Bommain will contest from the Shiggaon constituency.

Anant Kumar admitted that the BJP was in talks with the Janata Dal-United and efforts were being made to work out a pre-election tie-up.

Earlier, Rajnath Singh had indicated during an interview with rediff.com that the two parties might come together to contest the elections.

"The constituencies where the JD-U has a stronghold were not taken into consideration by us," he said

There are three women, 18 Scheduled Caste, 6 Scheduled Tribe and 24 Other Backward Caste candidates in the BJP list.

The BJP list of candidates