Karnataka bypolls: with 5 more seats, BJP Govt in majority

The Congress had a complete washout in the bypolls with the JD(S) winning three remaining seats, including the Madhugiri constituency where Anita Kumaraswamy, wife of former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, won her maiden poll battle to become the first woman from the family of former prime minister H D Devegowda to enter the Assembly. They will also be the first couple in the House.

Anita, who polled 49,757 votes, defeated her nearest rival K N Rajanna of the Congress by 3,456 votes. The BJP’s C Chenigappa finished third with 31,251 votes.

The Maddur seat in Mandya district, the heartland of the Vokkaligas or the Gowdas, also went to the JD(S) with Kalpana Siddaraju, the wife of former MLA M S Siddaraju, who riding a sympathy wave won by a margin of 19,397 votes. This was the only seat where bypoll was held on account of the death of the originally elected MLA. The former constituency of ex-chief minister and Congress leader S M Krishna polled only 13,450 votes for the Congress. A nephew of the former chief minister finished third in the polls.

Of the seven seats from where opposition MLAs were poached by the BJP in its efforts to achieve numbers, two seats — Turuvekere and Madhugiri in Tumkur — in south Karnataka did not live up to the party’s calculations. While Anita won from Madhugiri, the Turuvekere seat vacated by the defection of film star Jaggesh, from the Congress, also went the JD(S) way.

There was high drama in the counting in Turuvekere with the BJP initially believing that its candidate Lakshminarayana had won the polls. The BJP candidate suffered a heart attack and was shifted to a hospital after M T Krishnappa of the JD(S) was declared winner by a margin of 3,301 votes.

The BJP bagged only the Dodballapur constituency in south Karnataka where disgruntled Congress strongman and MP R L Jalappa’s son J Narasimhaswamy contested on a BJP ticket after quitting the Congress.

As expected, three former JD(S) MLAs, Umesh Katti from Hukkeri, Balachandra Jharkiholi from Arabhavi, Shivanagouda Naik from Devadurga, all in north Karnataka, and one former Congress MLA, Anand Asnotikar from Karwar in the coastal area, who quit their respective parties to become ministers in the BJP Government, romped home with huge margins.

These four young MLAs were specifically targeted for defection by the BJP in its efforts to shrug off dependence on six Independent MLAs.

Yeddyurappa, who called the polls a mini-referendum for the BJP ahead of the parliamentary polls, said the election results were “indicative of people’s approval of our programmes, policies and performance over the last seven months”. He said his attention would now be focused on helping the BJP win at least 20 of the 28 LS seats from the state.

Yeddyurappa said the BJP’s current arrangement with independent MLAs, of whom five are ministers, would continue. “The apple cart will not be disturbed,” he said.

Bellary mining baron and a counter-power centre in the BJP, Minister Janardhan Reddy, widely believed to have played a key role in engineering “Operation Lotus”, called the bypoll victories the result of Chief Minister Yeddyurappa’s leadership.