The Congress-Janata Dal Secular alliance found more reasons to sweeten their Deepavali celebrations by trouncing the BJP in its pocket borough of Bellary and winning the bypolls 4-1.
Apart from BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa’s home turf Shimoga, the party lost the other four seats — three of them for the Lok Sabha.
While the Congress won the key Bellary Lok Sabha seat and retained the Jhamkandi Assembly seat, the JDS held on to the Mandya Lok Sabha seat and the Ramanagara Assembly seat.
The headline event was in Bellary where Congress candidate V.S. Ugrappa defeated L. Shanta, the sister of BJP leader B. Sriramulu, by a margin of 243,161 votes.
In Jhamkhandi, Anand Nyama Gowda of the Congress defeated BJP’s Shrikanth Kulkarni by 39,480 votes.
In the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, L.R. Shivarame Gowda of the JDS defeated BJP’s Siddharamiah by 324,943 votes.
The BJP’s lone victory benefited Yeddyurappa’s family as his son B.Y. Raghavendra defeated the JDS’s Madhu Bangarappa by a margin of 52,148.
Chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s wife, Anitha Kumaraswamy romped home virtually unopposed from Ramanagara after BJP candidate L. Chandrashekar retired two days before the election after joining the Congress. She won by 109,137 votes.
But 15,906 votes were polled in favour of Chandrashekar, since it was too late for the Election Commission to remove his name from the electronic voting machines.
While the results will not have any impact on the Assembly seats of the ruling alliance since they have retained their seats, the BJP lost one seat in the Lok Sabha.
The bypoll was widely seen as a pointer ahead of next year’s general election.
JDS leader and chief minister Kumaraswamy credited the win to leaders of both parties and said senior Congress leaders worked very hard. “This result is the people’s message to us to continue working together,” he said.
K.C. Venugopal, the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka said: “We just won the semi-final to the Parliament elections and it’s clear that the people are with the Congress and the JDS,” he said.
“We will definitely continue this alliance and fight the Lok Sabha elections together.”
