The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday withdrew its candidates from the August 21 by-elections to two Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka, saying it did not want a split in anti-Congress votes. Now it will be a straight contest for the Bangalore Rural and Mandya seats between the ruling Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular. “We have withdrawn our candidates as our aim is to defeat the Congress and we did not want a split in anti-Congress votes,” BJP spokesman C T Ravi said. The by-elections were caused by the resignations of H D Kumaraswamy and N Cheluvarayaswamy from the the Lok Sabha after they won the May 5 elections to the Karnataka assembly. Bangalore Rural seat was held by Kumaraswamy, and Mandya, about 80km from Bangalore, by Cheluvarayaswamy. The two constituencies are considered JD-S strongholds. The JD-S has fielded Kumarawamy’s wife Anita from Bangalore Rural and former legislator C S Puttaraju from Mandya. Kumaraswamy is the son of JD-S president and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda.