As the Congress crosses majority-mark in the Karnataka Assembly elections on Saturday, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh launched a fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that Congress has won in Karnataka and PM Modi has lost. "As the results firm up in Karnataka it is now certain that the Congress has won and the PM has lost," Jairam Ramesh said.
"As the results firm up in Karnataka it is now certain that the Congress has won and the PM has lost. The BJP had made its election campaign a referendum on the PM and on the state getting his 'ashirwaad'. That has been decisively rejected! The Congress party fought these elections on LOCAL issues of livelihood and food security, price rise, farmer distress, electricity supply, joblessness, and corruption," Jairam Ramesh said.
"The PM injected divisiveness and attempted polarisation. The vote in Karnataka is for an engine in Bengaluru that will combine economic growth with social harmony," he added.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai on Saturday said that BJP has conceded defeat in the Karnataka Assembly elections though the counting of the votes is still underway. He said, "We will take result in our stride, we will reorganize the party and come back in Lok Sabha election."
According to the Election Commission, Congress is leading in 125 seats, followed by BJP in 69 seats, JD(S) in 24, and others in 6. The counting process began at 8 am across 36 centres throughout the state. The voting on May 10 witnessed a "record" turnout of 73.19 per cent, as citizens cast their votes to elect representatives for the 224-member Assembly.
BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the House in the 2018 election, winning 104 seats. In the 2018 polls, the Congress party won 80 seats. The run-up to the polls witnessed a number of wars of words between the senior party leaders. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed Congress in each of his rallies, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi responded with corruption and unemployment charges against him.
The state saw a three-cornered fight between the incumbent BJP, an aggressive Congress and the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular). A total of 2,615 candidates were in the fray. Karnataka has 224 constituencies spanning six regions -- Bengaluru, Central, Coastal, Hyderabad-Karnataka, Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka or Old Mysore region. Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka are the largest regions of the state and consist of 50 and 51 Assembly seats respectively.
In the 2018 election, Deve Gowda's son HD Kumaraswamy became the CM after JD(S) entered into a post-poll alliance with Congress. No party secured a majority in that election. However, the government lasted barely a year, with BJP weaning away MLAs, leading to the collapse of the JD(S)-Congress government in July 2019. BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the House in the 2018 election, winning 104 seats.