Lok Sabha election results: Congress vote share increases in Karnataka but party misses double-digit expectation

The BJP’s NDA ally, the Janata Dal Secular party, won two of the three seats it contested but lost the Hassan seat – the family borough of JDS leader and former PM H D Deve Gowda – after the sitting MP and Gowda grandson, Prajwal Revanna, lost to the Congress candidate.

A controversy over the alleged sexual assaults of women in the constituency by the Hassan JDS MP had emerged on the eve of the polls and this is widely believed to have played a role in his eventual defeat by a margin of 42,649 votes. Prajwal Revanna had won the seat by a margin of 1.41 lakh votes in 2019 with a JDS-Congress alliance.

What figures say

The Congress registered a 13 percent spike in its vote share in Karnataka in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls — 32.11 per cent in 2019 to 45.43 per cent in the 2024 polls.

The BJP, which registered 51.75 per cent in 2019 saw a dip in its vote share to 46.06 per cent while the JDS, which contested only three seats in 2024, registered 5.6 per cent of the votes compared to the 9.74 per cent votes in 2019 when it contested seven seats.

The vote share numbers for the Congress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was also a three per cent spike from the 42.88 per cent it got in the state polls last year while the BJP improved its vote share by 10 per cent from the assembly poll number of 36 per cent.

Noteworthy outcomes

Among the significant results in Karnataka was the defeat of D K Suresh, the two term MP from the Bengaluru Rural seat and brother of the state Congress president D K Shivakumar by first time BJP candidate Dr C N Manjunath, the son-in-law of former PM and JDS leader H D Deve Gowda, by a margin of 2.69 lakh votes.

JDS-BJP alliance works its way in south Karnataka

One of the key takeaways from the Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka is the effective working of the JDS-BJP alliance in the southern part of the state which facilitated big wins for the alliance in most seats other than Hassan and the Chamarajanagar (SC reserved) seats.

The polls results indicate a consolidation of votes of the dominant Vokkaliga community in favour of the NDA alliance in the old Mysuru region on account of the JDS presence compared to the state polls when the Vokkaliga votes consolidated for the Congress.

While JDS president H D Kumarawamy won the Mandya seat by a massive 2.84 lakh margin, JDS candidate Mallesh Babu won the Kolar (SC reserved) seat by 71,388 votes.

What Siddaramaiah, DK Shivakumar said

“One of the reasons for the loss (in south Karnataka) is the alliance of the BJP and JDS in old Mysore. We did not get the seats as we expected. We thought we would win in Mysore and Bangalore Central and Chitradurga,” Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said.

“In Old Mysore there is a difference in the verdict from the assembly polls to the Lok Sabha polls. This used to happen earlier as well. Despite being in power, there have been instances where we have had losses in the region in the past. We were hopeful of changing the situation but we could not do it,” the state Congress president D K Shivakumar said.

What worked for Congress and what it means

In what is seen as a possible reflection of the working of the Congress guarantees in Karnataka, the party won the entire chunk of five seats in the backward and impoverished Hyderabad Karnataka region – a traditional stronghold of the party that was lost in 2019

The wins in the region for Congress were by small margins with the victory of AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani in the Kharge family borough of Gulbarga. Doddamani won by 27,205 votes, making it among the narrowest Congress win margins.

The win in Hyderabad-Karnataka for the Congress suggests a consolidation of its vote base among the backward castes, Dalits and minorities and a swing vote from women cutting across communities due to the guarantee schemes of the state government.

The Congress won a lone seat in the Mumbai Karnataka region in Chikkodi where the state Congress minister Sathish Jarkiholi’s daughter Priyanka registered a win over the sitting BJP MP Annasaheb Jolle by a margin of 90,834 votes. The BJP, however, prevailed again in the majority of the six seats in the Lingayat-dominated Mumbai Karnataka region.

BJP and the urban voters

In Bengaluru, the BJP won all the three city seats like in 2019 – with Tejasvi Surya and Shobha Karandlaje registering emphatic wins with margins in excess of two lakh in Bangalore South and Bangalore Rural while P C Mohan won a fourth term in the Lok Sabha by a narrow margin of 32,707 votes over the lone Congress Muslim candidate Mansoor Ali Khan – who was leading by over 30,000 votes until the last rounds of counting.

The BJP won two of the three seats in central Karnataka, including Shimoga which re-elected former Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa’s son B Y Raghavendra by a margin of 2.43 lakh votes.

Lok Sabha results — Consolidation of Siddaramaiah’s position

The Congress performance in the Lok Sabha polls is expected to stabilise the position of Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah – especially on account of the loss of the Bangalore Rural seat of the Congress state president D K Shivakumar brother D K Suresh. The increase in vote percentage and seats is likely to help the chief minister ward off any mid-term challenge for the CM’s post by the party chief.

What Karnataka party leaders said

“There is no change in equations. We were expecting more seats but we have nine seats. The loss in Bengaluru Rural was unexpected. We thought we would overcome the combined strength of the BJP and JDS to win by a small margin but the margin is too high. I do not give credit to the party but to the candidate,” Shivakumar said Tuesday on Congress equations.

“The voting percentage for the Congress has increased. The voting percentage has decreased for the BJP. We are strong in all parts of the state that is why we have seen an increase in vote share. In terms of popular votes, we have won more seats than 2019,” Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said after the results.

“At first glance, the guarantees have worked but we have to analyse it further,” he said.

On the BJP, Siddaramaiah said, “Votes were being sought in Modi’s name so it is a moral defeat for the BJP. I am not saying that we have done very well but it is a moral loss for the BJP.”

“The Modi wave was not seen anywhere in the country. This poll result has diminished Modi’s popularity,” Siddaramaiah said. “It is uncertain who will form the government at the centre,” he added.

“In the whole country and the state this election has proved that the politics of trust is more important than the politics of power. The politics of trust has won the elections,” the state Congress president D K Shivakumar said.

“The Congress party fought the election with money power and as a result we have suffered some losses. I will not say that the guarantee schemes have delivered the Congress seats in parliament. The people have accepted the JDS-BJP alliance,” JDS state president H D Kumaraswamy said after the poll results.

“We are dedicating this victory to the dignified voters who have upheld the true values of politics despite the baseless slanders against the central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the conspiracy to mislead the voters in the name of vote bank-based schemes in Karnataka,” BJP state president B Y Vijayendra said.

“The hard work of BJP-JDS workers and leaders has paid off,” the BJP leader added.