K’taka: BJP bags 3 seats; Cong-1; JD(S)-0

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT Bengaluru

It was a day of jubilatIion for the ruling BJP wth all three candidates- Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-turned politician Jaggesh and former MLC Lehar Singh Siroya getting elected to the Rajya Sabha from the Legislative Assembly in the polls to four seats held here on Friday.

The Congress bagged one seat with sitting Rajya Sabha member, Jairam Ramesh sailing through but the party’s second candidate, Mansoor Ali Khan lost. The Janata Dal (Secular) suffered the biggest shock with its candidate, Kupendra Reddy losing the election primarily due to the absence of an electoral understanding between the Congress and JD(S).

While Nirmala Sitharaman and Jaggesh got 44 votes each, Lehar Singh secured 33 votes and Congress candidate, Jairam Ramesh secured 46 votes. The second candidate of the Congress, Mansoor Ali Khan and JD(S) candidate Kupendra Reddy secured 25 and 30 votes respectively. Of the 32 JD(S) MLAs, two legislators reportedly cross voted.

While Gubbi MLA R Srinivas is said to have voted for the BJP, Kolar MLA Srinivasagowda backed the Congress Party. It is also said that the vote of former minister and Holenarasipur MLA H.D.Revanna was rejected on the ground that he showed the ballot paper to Congress agent and KPCC President, D.K.Shivakumar.

Though the counting of votes was supposed to start at 4 pm, it was delayed by over two hours with the results finally announced at around 8:30 pm. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Union Minister of State for Agriculture Shobha Karandlaje, State BJP President Nalinkumar Kateel, BJP National General Secretary C.T.Ravi and two former CMs, B.S.Yediyurappa and Jagadish Shettar were present at Vidhana Soudha to greet Nirmala Sitharaman on her re-election from Karnataka. Vidhana Soudha wore a festive look as leaders of all parties gathered.