The BJP, which wrested two Assembly constituencies in the bypolls, made a clean sweep by winning all four Legislative Council seats. While the results of three seats had been declared by Tuesday, the result of the fourth seat was declared on Wednesday night.
The South East Graduates’ Constituency whose results could not be declared on Tuesday as counting was still in progress was won by BJP’s Chidnanda M. Gowda. He defeated Janata Dal (Secular) candidate R. Chowda Reddy Thoopalli, whose retirement on June 30 had caused the vacancy, and another former MLC Ramesh Babu of Congress.
With the win, BJP’s tally in the 75-member Upper House moved to 31, and is now the single largest party. The Congress and JD(S) have 28 and 14, respectively.
Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told The Hindu that the delay in announcement of result was due to the fact that the counting of votes that had begun early on Tuesday morning could only be concluded by Wednesday evening. “The counting progressed even in the night. This is because there were more number of ballots to be counted and had to be counted multiple times due to first preferential votes.”
Mr. Chidananda Gowda defeated his nearest rival D.T. Srinivasa, who rebelled against BJP and contested as an Independent. He is the husband of Hiriyur MLA Poornima Srinivas. While Mr. Gowda polled 30,976, Mr. Srinivasa polled 23,851 votes.
