MYSURU/BENGALURU: After failing to win double-digit seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Congress in Karnataka suffered another setback in the Legislative Council polls from Graduates’ and Teachers’ constituencies on Thursday. Congress candidates lost in the South Teachers’ constituency and South-West Teachers’ constituency to BJP-JDS alliance candidates. The alliance candidates, K Vivekananda and SL Bhoje Gowda, won the election in the first round of preferential votes.
In the South Teachers’ constituency, of the 18,979 votes polled, Vivekananda secured 10,823 votes against Congress’ Marithibbegowda, who got 6,201 votes. Vivekananda, a realtor, and novice to politics, defeated four-time MLC Marithibbegowda. Marithibbegowda had quit JDS and had recently joined the Congress with the hope of winning the election for the fifth time consecutively.
In the South-West Teachers’ Constituency, JDS-BJP alliance candidate SL Bhoje Gowda secured 9,829 votes while Congress candidate Dr KK Manjunath Kumar got 4,562 votes. Of the 23,402 votes, 19,479 votes had been polled.
“The BJP-JDS alliance has brought more power. The workers of both parties worked unitedly for the victory. I had won the previous election as JDS candidate, this time as alliance candidate,” said Bhoje Gowda.
JDS Core Committee president and MLA GT Devegowda said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should resign taking responsibility for the defeat in the Lok Sabha, and Graduates’ and Teachers’ MLC elections. “Congress had been defeated in CM Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar’s home district. Congress had sought votes for the guarantee schemes, but voters have rejected it. Owing to the guarantees, there had been no development activities in the state. Even women voters have rejected Congress in the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.
Meanwhile, the counting of votes for the South-West Graduates’ constituency was still underway on Thursday night. In the second round of counting of 28,000 votes, BJP-JDS candidate Dr Dhananjaya Sarji is leading with 14,077 votes while Congress’ Aayanur Manjunath got 5,250 votes and BJP rebel candidate K Raghupathi Bhat got 5,091 votes. Of the 85,089 voters, 66,529 graduates had exercised their franchise.
1,049 rejected votes
Many teachers who had worked in the previous several elections failed to cast their votes as per the directives of the Election Commission and 1,049 ballot papers were rejected.
As the election staff will count the first preferential votes by removing invalid votes, the candidate who receives more than half of the total valid votes in the first preference will be declared the winner. Otherwise, the elimination of the candidates based on the votes will be held. With election staff having to count the 66,529, the results for
the South-West Graduates’ Constituency are expected to be out on Friday. The counting of votes for the Bangalore Graduates’ constituency, South-East Teachers’ constituency, and North-East Graduates’ constituency was still in progress on Thursday night.