Bangalore: The ruling Congress-Janata Dal Secular alliance in Karnataka won its first Assembly seat after coming to power 20 days ago with the Congress nominee wresting a BJP stronghold.
Sowmya Reddy beat B.N. Prahlad of the BJP by 2,889 votes in Jayanagar, which had been a BJP pocket borough for the past decade. She polled 54,457 votes against 51,568 of Prahlad.
A youth leader and daughter of former home minister Ramalinga Reddy, Sowmya had the backing of the JDS that pulled out its candidate to mark the first electoral foray of the ruling alliance.
The victory took the Congress tally to 79 and that of the ruling alliance to 118 - seven clear of the magic number in a full House of 224.
Election to the Jayanagar constituency in south Bangalore had been countermanded after BJP candidate B.N. Vijayakumar died of a heart attack two days before the May 12 polls.
While the Congress stuck to Sowmya as its nominee, the BJP fielded Prahlad, brother of Vijayakumar, in an obvious attempt to garner sympathy votes. But the alliance outdid the BJP in the constituency that had remained loyal to Vijayakumar in the 2008 and 2013 elections.
By wresting Jayanagar from the BJP, Sowmya won back her father's former constituency.
The Congress had earlier retained the Rajarajeshwari Nagar seat for which polling had been postponed following the discovery of more than 9,500 voter I-cards from a flat that allegedly belonged to a friend of the party candidate.
But the Congress bettered its 2013 performance in the May 28 elections despite the JDS remaining in the fray.
The Congress's tally would have increased to 80 following the Jayanagar win but for the death of veteran leader B. Siddu Nyamagouda in a road accident on May 28. A by-election will soon be held in Jamkhandi, Bagalkot, to fill the vacancy.
A second by-election will be held at Ramnagara, the seat chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy gave up while retaining the neighbouring Channapatna. The JDS is likely to field either the chief minister's wife Anitha Kumaraswamy or his son Nikhil Kumaraswamy.
Congress workers broke into celebrations with Sowmya maintaining her lead from the first round of counting.
"We have just wrested our old seat," said party vice-president K.E. Radhakrishna.
He said the Congress began losing in Jayanagar after the delimitation before the 2008 Assembly elections. "The delimitation changed the voter pattern, which favoured the BJP. But now we have won it back," he added.
A beaming Sowmya said she expected to do well in her father's old constituency. "My father worked hard in Jayanagar. Now the voters have given me an opportunity to work for them," said the well-known animal rights activist and environmentalist.
The victory made Sowmya the lone woman MLA from Bangalore and the eighth in the Assembly. It also took the Congress's tally to 15 in the 28 seats in Bangalore.
Sowmya had shot to fame by opting for a "green" wedding in 2015. She got the food waste segregated and opted for reusable glasses, plates and cutlery. She chose vegan options in place of ghee and milk to cook the wedding meal.
