In an emphatic endorsement of Karnataka’s ruling JD(S)-Congress coalition by the voters, its candidates on Tuesday won both the assembly constituencies and are set to clinch two of the three Lok Sabha seats in the bitterly fought by-polls held on Saturday, officials said.
The byelections came as a major setback for the main opposition BJP ahead of the 2019 elections with the party set to lose the Ballari Lok Sabha seat, considered a stronghold of the controversial mining barons – the Reddy brothers.
V S Ugrappa of the Congress has established a lead of more than 2.14 lakh votes in Ballari over BJP’s J Shantha, the sister of B Sriramulu, a key aide of the Reddys and former MP from there.
The BJP is leading only in Shivamogga parliamentary seat, the pocket borough of the Leader of the Opposition B S Yeyyurappa. His son B Y Raghavendra has established a lead of more than 51,000 votes over Madhu Bangarappa of the JD(S). Madhu is the son of former Congress chief minister the late S Bangarappa.
Counting was in the final stages for the Lok Sabha seats, officials said.
Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha bagged the Ramanagara assembly seat by a spectacular margin of 1,09,137 against her nearest rival BJP’s L Chandrashekar, who had pulled out of the contest, but still officially remains the party candidate.
Chandrashekhar, who had joined the BJP ahead of the polls returned to Congress weeks later, leaving the saffron party red-faced and the field open for a walkover for Anitha Kumaraswamy.
Ramanagara seat fell vacant after Kumaraswamy preferred to retain Chennapatna, the other constituency from where he had won.
In Jamkhandi, Congress candidate Anand Nyamgouda defeated BJP’s Srikant Kulkarni by a margin of 39,480 votes, riding a sympathy wave following his father and sitting MLA Siddu Nyamagouda’s death in a road accident.
With Tuesday’s victory, the Congress-JD(S) alliance’s tally will go up to 120 seatsin the 224 member assembly where the BJP has 104 MLAs.
In Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, JD(S) candidate L Shivarame Gowda has established a lead of a staggering 3.24 lakh votes over BJP candidate Siddaramaiah, a political green horn and a former civil servant.
Mandya is a stronghold of the Vokkaliga community to which JD(S) supremo and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda belongs.
Elated over the performance of the ruling alliance candidates, jubilant Congress workers distributed sweets and broke coconuts at various places.
Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao claimed the results reflected the disenchantment of people with the BJP.
“Look at the margins…it’s clear that people are fed up with the BJP. This anti-people, anti-farmer, anti-women government at the Centre must go.
“All forces need to come together to take on the BJP. BJP will be wiped out of Karnataka in 2019 (Lok Sabha polls). If it is wiped out in Karnataka, it will be wiped out in the entire south India,” he said.
Karnataka is the only south Indian state where the BJP has been in power.
The by-elections for three Lok Sabha seats were necessitated after Yeddyurappa and Sriramulu of the BJP and C S Puttaraju of the JD(S) vacated Shivamogga, Ballari and Mandya following their election to the assembly in May.
Bypolls to Jamkhandi seat was necessitated following the death of sitting Congress MLA Siddu Nyamagouda, while Ramanagara fellvacant after Kumaraswamy gave it up.
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