BENGALURU: Three women candidates were in a fierce contest, but eventually, BJP candidate Manjula S defeated Congress candidate H Suresh on Saturday, becoming the only woman candidate in the city to win. The two others were Congress Jayanagar candidate Sowmya Reddy and Congress RR Nagar candidate Kusuma H.
It was a cliffhanger in Jayanagar when after several rounds of counting no clear winner emerged till late at night. KPCC president DK Shivakumar, his brother and Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh, and Sowmya’s father Ramalinga Reddy were camping outside the SSMRV College counting centre in Tilaknagar.
As the contest became tighter, BJP candidate CK Ramamurthy was declared the winner, but Congress challenged it. Another round of recounting was done after which Sowmya lost by just 17 votes. Chaos prevailed at the counting centre as both Congress and BJP workers and top leaders of both parties tried to enter the counting centre.
“The Congress candidate of Jayanagar Assembly Constituency Mrs. Sowmya Reddy has won but protested against the action of the election officials who tried to distort the result on the pretext of recount,” Shivakumar tweeted, with a picture of him seated with Ramalinga Reddy.
Meanwhile, Kusuma H, one of the youngest candidates, made another attempt to defeat incumbent MLA Munirathna, after a crushing blow in the 2020 by-polls by a margin of over 58,000 votes. However, despite maintaining over 6,000 votes in the lead well into the afternoon, Munirathna won by a margin of 11,842 votes. Kusuma H, wife of late IAS officer DK Ravi, made her debut in politics in the 2020 byelections. She had joined Congress along with her father, JDS leader Hanumatharayappa.