Ashok Gasti and Iranna Kadadi, both of the ruling BJP, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda of the JD(S) and former Union Minister and AICC General Secretary Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress have been declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha in the biennial elections from Karnataka.
Returning Officer and Legislative Assembly Secretary M.K. Vishalakshi on Friday announced the election of four candidates to the Rajya Sabha without contest.
Voting was necessary in the election as no party fielded any additional candidate against each other and limited their contest to the number of seats they could easily win, based on their strength in the Assembly.
While Mr. Gasti, Mr. Kadadi and Mr. Kharge are entering the Upper House of the Parliament for the first time, Mr. Gowda doing so for the second time. This will also be the first stint in the Rajya Sabha for Mr. Kharge, who has always got elected directly in his long political career.
Polling was earlier scheduled on June 19 to fill four seats, represented by Rajeev Gowda and B.K. Hariprasad of Congress, Prabhakar Kore of BJP and D. Kupendra Reddy of JD(S) that are set to fall vacant on June 25. The BJP, with 117 members in the Assembly, including the Speaker, was in a position to ensure victory in two seats. Congress with 68 MLAs could get one. The JD(S), which has 34 seats in the Assembly, was not in a position to win a seat on its own, but had Congress’s support with its surplus votes.
