The BJP nominee of Karnataka Legislative Council's south-east graduate constituency, Chidananda Gowda, is ahead after the first preferential votes were counted.
While Gowda was ahead with about 24000 plus votes, trailing in the second place was the saffron party's Rebel candidate DT Srinivas followed by JDS nominee Chowd Reddy in the third position with about sixteen thousand votes. Congress candidate Ramesh Babu was in a distant fourth with about 8000 plus votes.
After the vote counting lasted all night, rebel canidate Srinivas, who initially lead the second round by about 600 votes, slipped to the second place as Chidanand Gowda inched ahead and established a margin of about 5000 votes. Presently counting of the second preference votes are going on.
Out of the total 81000 votes, about 7000 plus votes were turned invalid because of the ink, which is used to put the tick mark next to a candidate's name, has run over on more than one candidate.