Karnataka polls: Cong protests after BJP candidate wins Jayanagar by 16 votes

Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar staged a protest outside the counting centre in Karnataka’s Jayanagar late on Saturday (May 13) after BJP candidate CK Ramamurthy won the seat by a slender margin of 16 votes against Congress’s Soumya Reddy, officials said.

“The result was announced by the officials at the counting centre at SSMRV College in Jayanagar” late on Saturday, a state Information Department official said in a statement.

Ramamurthy got 57,797 votes while Reddy got 57,781 votes. Shivakumar, who was accompanied by Congress’s state unit working president Ramalinga Reddy, who is also the father of Sowmya Reddy, and many other party leaders demonstrated outside the polling booth, demanding justice.

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They alleged misuse of government machinery to favour Ramamurthy. Shivakumar alleged that BJP leaders Tejaswi Surya and R Ashok were allowed into the counting centre.

Final count

The elections to 224 Assembly seats in the state was held on May 10 and the votes were counted on Saturday. In final count, the Congress won 135 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly. The BJP won 66 seats, and the JD(S) 19, according to the Election Commission.

Independents won two seats, while Janardhana Reddy’s Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha won the seat contested by the mining baron himself. The Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha bagged a seat as well.

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Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, who won the Shiggaon seat by 35,978 votes, tendered his resignation to Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot on Saturday evening. Many of his Cabinet colleagues lost.

(With agency inputs)