Bangalore: Ruling allies Congress and Janata Dal Secular on Monday appeared set to govern most of Karnataka's urban local bodies although the BJP improved considerably on its performance from the previous election five years ago.
With 2,662 of the 2,709 seats declared, the Congress stood at 982 and the BJP at 929, with the JDS a distant third at 375.
Although the Congress and the JDS had contested separately - for unexplained reasons - they said on Saturday they would tie up to govern the local bodies where they together have a majority.
The two parties had contested the May Assembly polls separately too and struck an alliance after the results.
Although the combined Congress-JDS tally of 1,357 represents more than half the seats, the majorities will be decided individually for each urban local body. Three city corporations, 29 city municipal councils, 52 town municipal councils and 20 town panchayats went to the polls on Saturday.
In 2013, the Congress had bagged 1,960 of the total 4,976 seats while the BJP and the JDS won 905 each, a PTI report said. Elections to the remaining 2,269 seats are likely next year.
"We will run as many local bodies as possible in alliance with the Congress and keep the BJP out," JDS national president and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda told reporters.
His son and chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said the results reflected popular approval for the coalition government. "It's a people's mandate for our (post-poll) alliance with the Congress," he said.
Neither Gowda nor Kumaraswamy explained why the allies had contested independently.
State BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa admitted the performance was not up to his expectations.
"We should have done better. But it's a credible performance against money and muscle power," he said, adding that the BJP would win 23 of the state's 28 Lok Sabha seats in the general election.
State Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao said the results were the perfect reply to those who had said the alliance with the JDS had weakened the party.
"We did very well and this shows that the Congress base is intact," Rao told a news conference.
