BENGALURU: BJP won in three out of the six Karnataka Legislative Council seats, the results of which were announced on Wednesday. Of the remaining three, JD(S) won two seats while Congress won one seat. Polls were held on June 6, for six seats of which four were held by BJP and two by JD(S).
In an upset, Congress was able to wrest the North East Graduates' Constituency from the BJP as Chandrashekar Patil defeated KB Srinivas by a narrow margin of 321 votes. While Patil secured 18,768 votes, Srinivas got 18,447 votes. BJP MLC had represented the constituency since it was formed in 1988.
In Bengaluru Graduates' constituency, BJPs A Devegowda who polled 17,702 votes defeated Congress's Ramojigowda - 12,838 votes -by a margin of 4,864 votes. BJP was able to retain the South West Graduates' constituency as BJP's Aayanuru Manjunath (25,250 votes) defeated Congress candidate SP Dinesh (16,157) by 9,093 votes. It was earlier represented by former Chairman of the Karnataka Legislative Council, D H Shankaramurthy.
In the three teachers' constituencies, JD(S) won two while BJP won one. In Karnataka South-West Teachers Constituency JD(S) S L Bhojegowda - 8,647 votes - defeated BJPs Capt Ganesh Karnik - 5,812 votes. Karnik was seeking a re-election to the council for a third time, after being first elected in 2006.
In Karnataka South East Teachers Constituency, BJPs Dr Y A Narayanaswamy - 8,479 votes, defeated JD(S) candidate Ramesh Babu 6,607. In Karnataka South Teachers Constituency JD(S)'s Marithibbe Gowda - 11,022 votes - won against Congress' M Lakshmana - 6,805 votes.
With the results, Congress has been able to increase its strength in the 75-member council by one to 35, while BJP's by one to 19. Number of JD(S) MLCs - 14 - has remained unchanged. There are three independents and four seats are yet to be filled.