Karnataka Result: Siddaramaiah Defeats BJP's Somanna In Varuna, Becomes MLA For 9th Time
Karnataka Election Result 2023: Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah won the Varuna seat against his closest BJP rival.
Karnataka Election Result 2023: Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday won the Varuna seat, defetaing his closest rival BJP leader V Somanna by a margin of 46,163 votes. The veteran Congress leader, 75, got 1,19,816 votes against 73,653 polled by his BJP rival and influential Lingayat leader V Somanna. The Bahujan Samaj Party candidate was in third place with 1,075 votes, according to the Election Commission website.
In 2018, Siddaramaiah left the Varuna seat for his son S Yathindra and contested from Chamundeshwari and Badami. While he lost in Chamundeshwari to JD(S) candidate GT Deve Gowda, he defeated the BJP's B Sriramulu by slender a margin of 1,996 votes in Badami.
Siddaramaiah represented the Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru in the Karnataka assembly five times -- in 1983 as an Independent, in 1985 on a Janata Party ticket, in 1994 and 2004 for the Janata Dal, and in 2006 for the Congress by a lean margin of 257 votes.
In 2008, he shifted to Varuna which is also in the Mysuru region, and registered an easy victory that he repeated in 2013.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its only stronghold in the south today (May 13), with Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai conceding defeat as Congress looks set to get a majority and form the government. Making corruption a central campaign theme and promise of free rice, power, and employment dole are among the factors that likely contributed to the Congress's good performance.
Karnataka registered a "record" turnout of 73.19 per cent in the voting on May 10, to elect representatives to the 224-member Assembly.
The results are important for more than one reason. BJP has now lost its foothold in the south and will face a tough challenege in the upcoming Telangana election.
For the Congress, the Karnataka result will give it a much-needed boost in two of the only three states it holds power now and where elections are due later this year -- Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The victory will also give the Congress bragging rights as the party tries to cobble together like-minded Opposition parties to form some sort of an anti-BJP front to take on the PM Modi juggernaut in the Lok Sabha election next year.
Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar has been a talking point since switching from the BJP to the Congress in the run-up to the elections. Shettar, a prominent Lingayat leader, was defeated by the BJP's Mahesh Tenginakai in the Hubli-Dharwad Central assembly segment by nearly 30,000 votes.
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