Council poll: Cong gets even with BJP

Both parties win 11 seats each, JD(S) decimated with just 2 seats, loses in strongholds

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: The ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress shared the spoils winning 11 each of the 25 Legislative Council seats from the local bodies constituencies which went to polls on December 10 but there was no mistaking the fact that the Congress has managed to keep the saffronists at bay in a state where they are in power and had the state machinery and abundant resources at their disposal to win the polls. The BJP also fell one seat short of gaining a simple majority in the Council.

The big shock was the decimation of the JD(S) which contesed six seats but could win only two while the surprise win came from Belagavi where Lakhan, one of the brothers in the powerful Jarkiholi clan, secured a win during the counting of second preferential votes, taking the tally of the Jarkiholis in the legislature to four. Balachandra, Ramesh and Satish Jarkiholi are already members of the state Assembly.

During the early rounds of counting, the JD(S) was expected to win only one seat-Hassan where Suraj Revanna, son of former minister H.D.Revanna and grandson of former PM Deve Gowda, finally won by a record margin of first preferential votes. The ding-dong battle in Mysuru- Chamarajangar finally resulted in a victory for C.N. Manjegowda, a former Congress leader, who had joined the JD(S) just a few days before the filing of nominations. He won in the counting of second preferential votes in what is considered a big slap for the BJP which has an MP and four MLAs in Mysuru and Chamarajanagar districts.

Among prominent losers in this election are BJP Chief Whip Mahantesh Kavatagimath in Belagavi, veteran Congress leader K.C.Kondaiah in Ballari and sitting JD(S) member Appajigowda in Mandya. The big winners are Social Welfare Minister Kota Srinivas Poojary, Dinesh Guligowda, former special officer to Co-Operation and Mysuru District-in-Charge Minister S.T.Somashekar who was the surprise Congress candidate in Mandya, and Channaraj Hattiholi, Congress candidate and brother of Belagavi MLA Lakshmi Hebbalkar.

Former chairman of the Council, D.H.Shankarmurthy’s son D.S.Arun, former minister and Babaleshwar MLA M.B. Patil’s brother Sunilgouda Patil and KPCC President D.K.Shivakumar’s close relative S.Ravi also figure among the winners. Congress’ multi-billionaire candidate from Bangalore Urban Yousuf Sharif who has declared assets belonging to him and his family worth over Rs 1,744 crore, lost to BJP’s Gopinath Reddy.

The Congress has every reason to be happy with its performance as it bagged an impressive 11 seats despite being out of power. The party lost in Ballari, Chitradurga, Uttara Kannada and Kalaburagi but was able to make inroads into BJP strongholds in North Karnataka and JD(S) bastions in the South.

This has increased the confidence levels of Congress leaders ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls. All three parties contested the polls on their own though there was talk of a subtle understanding between the BJP and JD(S) with former CM Yediyurappa suggesting that the JD(S) support the BJP in seats it was not contesting.

With these results, the BJP’s strength in the 75-member Upper House has gone up from 32 to 37, while the Congress tally has declined from 29 to 26 and the JD(S) tally has reduced from 12 to 10. During the previous MLC polls from the local bodies constituencies in 2015, the BJP had won six, Congress 14 and JD(S) four seats respectively, while one seat had gone to an independent.

Over 99 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the December 10 elections for which 90 candidates were in the fray, including twenty each from the BJP and Congress party, and six from JD(S).