New Delhi: BJP candidate CK Ramamurthy was declared winner from the Jayanagar seat in Karnataka by a thin margin of 16 votes against Congress's Soumya Reddy on Saturday, officials said.
"The result was announced by the officials at the Counting Centre at S S M R V College in Jayanagar late tonight," a state Information Department official said in a statement.
According to the EC website, Sowmya Reddy got 57,781 votes while C K Ramamurthy secured 57,797 votes.
The Election Commission had earlier ordered the recounting of postal ballots in the Jayanagar constituency.
After rounds of counting, Reddy was leading by 294 votes as she secured 57,591 votes and Ramamurthy 57,297. As the victory margin was too narrow, BJP's Ramamurthy demanded the recounting of votes. The Election officials agreed to do so.
Tension prevailed at the R V Institute of Management in Jayanagar where the counting was taking place as the Congress state president D K Shivakumar along with state unit working president Ramalinga Reddy, who is also the father of Sowmya Reddy, and many other leaders staged a demonstration outside the polling booth in protest against the electoral body's order.
"The Congress candidate of Jayanagar Assembly Constituency Mrs. Soumya Reddy has won but protested against the action of the election officials who tried to distort the result on the pretext of recount," Shivakumar tweeted in Kannada.
They alleged misuse of government machinery to favour Ramamurthy.
After the recounting, Election officials declared Ramamurthy as the winner with a thin margin of 16 votes.
With this, 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 website.