DAVANGERE: Despite trailing in the first seven rounds of counting, the Congress’s Samarth Shamanur Mallikarjun scraped through in Davanagere South Assembly constituency, considered to be a bastion of the ruling party, by a margin of 5,708 votes.
Samarth secured 69,578 votes while BJP’s Srinivas Daskariyappa logged 63,870 votes. SDPI’s Afsar Kodlipet put up a spirited show with 18,975 votes. Out of the total 1,58,131 polled, 511 turned out to be NOTAs, said election officer Santosh Patil.
The constituency went to bypoll due to the death of senior Congress leader and former president of Akhil Bharath Veerashiva-Lingayat Mahasabha Dr Shamanur Shivashankarappa in December.
After the first round of counting, Daskariyappa was ahead by 577 votes and he steadily increased the lead round by round to 2,777 (second), 4,683 (third round), 5701 (fourth round), 8446 (fifth round) and 8539 (sixth round). After the seventh round his lead came down to 3,925.
Samarth took a lead of 1,073 votes after the eight round and then did not look back. After the 13th round, the lead swelled to 8,813 votes. Though his lead declined in the following rounds, he stayed ahead of his nearest rival till the 24th and last round.
Afsar Kodlipet, the state general secretary of the SDPI, evidently cut into the Congress’s Muslim vote bank, giving a fright to the Shamanur clan. Afsar did well in minority dominated segments but fared poorly in rural Davanagere.
Analysts said the Congress managed to keep its pride intact thanks to a large chunk of votes from the dalit-dominated Gandhinagar as well as strong backing from the OBCs and a section of the Veerashiva Lingayats.
The Congress campaign was plagued by alleged anti-party activities by MLC Abdul Jabbar who was keen to contest here, and his supporters. The near absence of Housing and Waqf minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan from the poll fray too sent confusing signals to the Muslim constituency.
KPCC spokesperson D Basavaraj said the Congress could win thanks to the strategy of the KPCC president DK Shivakumar as well as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s guarantees and appeal to the OBCs. He said Legislative Council Chief Whip Saleem Ahmed and Shivajinagar MLA Rizwan Arshad had stepped into to bolster the Congress fortunes.
