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. (File photo)

Source : PTI

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.

 

Source: https://results.eci.gov.in

 

Source: https://results.eci.gov.in/

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.