BENGALURU: Despite lacking numbers, the BJP won a third seat in Karnataka as Congress and JD(S) fell apart. JD(S), some of whose MLAs cross-voted in the election on Friday, drew a blank.
In Congress-JD(S) tussle, BJP walks away with bonus seat
Bengaluru: The ruling BJP won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka, while Congress bagged one seat and JD(S), some whose MLAs cross-voted, returned empty-handed.Despite lacking numbers, BJP won a third seat, taking advantage of the tussle between Congress and JD(S) over electoral arrangement.
The winners are: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya (all from BJP), and former Union minister Jairam Ramesh from Congress. Alleged violation of rules delayed the counting of votes by a couple of hours.
Siddaramaiah of Congress and HD Kumaraswamy of JD(S) played the who-willblink-first game only to see BJP walk away with the fourth seat.
Sitharaman and Ramesh polled 46 votes each and Jaggesh secured 44 votes. Siroya was declared elected after he secured 36 votes, the highest among the three contenders. It is alleged that JD(S) MLA from Gubbi, SR Srinivas, voted for Siroya, who got 1. 7 surplus votes from Sithara- man since she had polled 46 votes based on the calculations of surplus and secondpreference votes. He also got two additional second-preference votes.
JD(S) candidate Kupendra Reddy polled 30 votes. Kolar MLA Srinivas Gowda (JDS) voted for Congress, violating the party whip. Congress’ second candidate, Mansoor Ali Khan, managed only 25 votes.
With 122 MLAs, BJP was certain to win two seats as each candidate needed 45 firstpreference votes. However, the decision of Congress and JD(S) to contest the fourth seat, despite having insuffi- cient votes, forced BJP to field Siroya, who eventually won. Siddaramaiah’s appeal to JD(S) MLAs to “vote as per conscience” did not have many takers. He expected four or five of them to cross-vote. Siddaramaiah, who has a running feud with Kumaraswamy, reportedly single-handedly convinced the party high command to field a candidate for the fourth seat.
On the other hand, Kumaraswamy believed the Congress would have no choice but to support his party’s candidate to prevent BJP from winning an additional seat. But their plans fell through as neither side budged. There was high drama when BJP pressed for HD Revanna’s (JDS) vote to be declared invalid, alleging that he showed his ballot to Congress president DK Shivakumar. But the assembly secretary, also the returning officer, turned down the demand after verifying video footage. This delayed counting by two hours since the Election Commission had to approve the secretary’s decision. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda congratulated chief minister Basavaraj Bommai and state BJP functionaries on the win.
