Karnataka by-elections 2018: Congress-JDS coalition drubs BJP 4-1

Bengaluru: Elated over the performance of the ruling alliance candidates, jubilant Congress workers distributed sweets and broke coconuts at various places. Both the coalition partners had put up joint candidates in the bypolls, which was also considered a test of their ties.

Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha won from Ramanagara, near Bangalore. It was a sort for consolation win for the BJP when it managed to hold on to the Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat.

In Ballari, Congress stormed the Bharatiya Janata Party citadel when V.S. Ugrappa won the seat by more than 2.43 lakh votes over BJP’s J. Shantha, the sister of B Sriramulu, a key aide of the Reddy brothers.

Sriramulu is considered a close confidante of Janardhana Reddy, but the BJP had distanced itself from the mining baron in the May assembly polls with party president Amit Shah making the party position clear.

Ballari had been a Congress pocketborough till 2004 and elected Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls against BJP’s Sushma Swaraj. Since 2004, the influence of the powerful and mighty Reddy brothers was evident in Bellary.

In Shivamogga, the traditional stronghold of former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, his son B Y Raghavendra defeated his JDS rival Madhu Bangarappa by 52,148 votes. Madhu is the son of former Congress chief minister, the late S Bangarappa. JD(S) candidate L.R. Shivarame Gowda scored a huge victory in Mandya, defeating BJP’s Siddaramaiah, a political green horn and a former civil servant by 3,24,943 votes.

Anitha bagged the Ramanagara assembly seat by a big margin of 1,09,137 votes against her nearest rival BJP’s L Chandrashekar.

Huge margin
Congress-JD(S)
combine: 2 LS seats and 2 Assembly seats
BJP: 1 LS seat
Congress: Ballari LS seat and Jamkhandi Assembly seat
JD(S): Mandya LS seat and Ramanagara Assembly seat
BJP: Shivamogga Lok
Sabha seat