BENGALURU: Victory in all the three bypolls in Karnataka has come as consolation for the Congress party which faced a debacle in Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly polls.
The win for its candidates in Sanduru, Shiggaon and Channapatna, downplayed the predictions of the exit polls that gave one seat each for Congress, BJP and JD(S). It also approved that the ruling dispensation had an edge in the bypolls.
The results were much needed for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, whose predictions also came true, as it gave him a shot in the arm personally and also for the party as both were mired in controversies including the MUDA case and the multi-crore Maharshi Valmiki ST development corporation scam.
Congress which has 136 MLAs had made its position formidable further by adding two more seats to its kitty. Especially winning Shiggaon-in mid Karnataka region which is considered BJP's stronghold, and Channapatna- a vokkaliga bastion in the old Mysuru region, came as a bonus.
Meanwhile, the results came as a setback for the BJP.
The defeat of Nikhil Kumaraswamy in Channapatna shocked his father and union minister H D Kumaraswamy.
Similarly, the defeat of Bharat Bommai in Shiggaon shook his father and former CM Basavaraj Bommai. Congress party's C P Yogeshwara defeated Nikhil in Channapatna while Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan showed Bharat the door in Shiggaon. Both Kumaraswamy and Basavaraj Bommai had campaigned extensively for their sons.
In Channapatna former prime minister H D Deve Gowda had campaigned for his grandson Nikhil with NDA leaders including B S Yediyurappa. The intense contest was termed as a proxy war between DCM D K Shivakumar, who had asserted that he was the candidate, and H D Kumaraswamy, eventually the former managed to win it. Shivakumar's move of inducting Yogeeshwara and making him a Congress candidate worked out in the end. He retracted from fielding his younger brother and former Bengaluru rural MP D K Suresh to give the opportunity to Yogeeshwara.
Congress retained the Sanduru seat as Ballari MP E Tukaram's wife E Annapoorna defeated BJP's Bangaru Hanumanthu.
The consolidation of the AHINDA-acronym for minorities, backward classes and the Dalits- votes favoured the Congress party candidates in all the three seats.
The Congress party which held the Sanduru seat in the 2023 assembly polls managed to retain it besides snatching Shiggaon and Channapatna from the BJP and JD(S) parties respectively.
The whitewash has come as a setback for the NDA including the BJP and the JD(S) which went with an alliance in the polls.
The Congress party handed out a defeat to Nikhil Kumaraswamy, grandson of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, in Channapatna resulting in his (NIkhil's) electoral politics being in jeopardy. It is a hat trick defeat for Nikhil as he had lost the Mandya LS polls in 2019 as Congress-JD(S) alliance candidate and Ramanagara assembly seat in the 2023 polls.