BJP registers massive win in Karnataka, bags 25 seats out of 28; Congress, JDS in a fix

Bengaluru: BJP has registered a massive win in Karnataka as it has secured 25 seats in Karnataka out of 28 constituencies. With independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh winning the Mandya seat, it is one seat in addition to the BJP as the party had supported her candidacy.

Except for two seats (one each for the Congress and the JDS), the coalition has failed miserably in the state.

The state experienced surprising developments in many constituencies including Kalaburagi, Tumakuru, Mandya and Chamarajanagar.

In Kalaburagi (also known as Gulbarga), 10-time MLA, veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge (5,20,726 votes) was defeated by BJP's Umesh Jadhav (6,15,894 votes).

Jadhav had quit Congress and joined the BJP in March to contest against his former colleague Mallikarjun Kharge. 

In Tumakuru, former CM Deve Gowda was defeated by BJP's GS Basavaraj. Even Congress supporters were opposed to fielding Deve Gowda from Tumakuru. He had shifted base as he left his home turf Hassan for grandson Prajwal Revanna to contest. Ironically, Hassan is the only place in Karnataka where JD(S) won.

Deve Gowda secured 5,81,624 votes and GS Basavaraj got 5,94,011 votes in Tumakuru.

Whereas in Mandya, JD(S) was confident of Nikhil Kumaraswamy's win, but Sumalatha was banking on sympathy votes following the death of husband Ambareesh and campaigns by the likes of Sandalwood stars Yash and Darshan.

In a neck-to-neck battle, as each round progressed, the results swung alternately. In the last two rounds, Sumalatha gained a comfortable lead and won the election with a margin of nearly 1.25 lakh. Sumalatha secured 7,01,122 votes, whereas Nikhil secured only 5,75,540 votes.

It was a close call in Chamarajanagar as V Srinivas Prasad of BJP was facing Congress's R Dhruvanarayan and won the election just with 833 votes. Srinivas Prasad was a veteran Congress leader, but quit the party and joined BJP when he was removed from the ministry during Siddaramaiah's tenure as chief minister in 2016. Dhruvanarayana was his ardent disciple but he decided to remain in the party. Thus the duo was facing each other for the first time and at last the master won amidst news of some EVM machines not working properly hampering the counting of votes. The problem was set right later.

Srinivas Prasad got 5,66,267 votes whereas his disciple and now arch rival Dhruvanarayan secured 5,65,434 votes.       

In another interesting development, 7-time MLA from Congress, KH Muniyappa (498156) of the Congress was defeated by S Muniswamy (707863) of the BJP in Kolar. JD(S) leaders openly admitted to have campaigned against Congress candidate Muniyappa, despite being allies of his party. 

Congress registered its victory in one constituency with the win of DK Suresh in Bengaluru Rural. DK Suresh, who secured 8,78,258 votes, defeated BJP's Ashwathnarayana, who got 8,78,258 votes. 

JD(S) too has only one win in their kitty with Prajwal Revanna winning the Hassan seat against BJP's A Manju. Prajwal contested the election for the first time and secured 6,76,606 against BJP's A Manju, who got 5,35,282 votes.

It was a landslide for BJP in Karnataka too with Tejasvi Surya of Bengaluru South winning with a 3 lakh margin. 

Anant Kumar Hegde was the first one to set a  record as he won with a record margin of over 4.5 lakh votes. Hegde secured 7,86,042 votes and his closest opponent Anand Asnotikar got 3,06,393 votes.

Karnataka bypolls:

Karnataka went for bypolls with respect to two constituencies Chincholi and Kundagol. In Kundagol, Kusuma Shivalli of the Congress won the election and in Chincholi, the victory was in the name of Avinash Jadhav of the BJP.

Here are the results of 28 Lok Sabha constituencis: