He was an Independent candidate backed by the JDS. But since the JDS had only 27 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, Mallya required 16 more votes to be elected.
While the ruling BJP had 116 seats in the House, the Congress had 74, besides six Independents and one vacant seat. The BJP managed to elect M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ayanur Manjunath, while the Congress elected Oscar Fernandes.
But the Congress failed to mop up enough numbers to elect its second nominee, T.V. Maruthi. The BJP made sure the Congress did not get a second seat by supporting Mallya.
Mallya won with 27 JDS votes, one from an Independent and the remaining from the BJP. He resigned in May 2016.
Current chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and his elder brother H.D. Revanna were present when Mallya filed his nomination papers.
State BJP spokesperson Vaman Acharya said Mallya was the beneficiary of cross-voting in 2010. "A few of our MLAs had cross-voted for Mallya, who was an Independent. But as a party we did not support him," Acharya said.
He said the BJP was not in a position to sack the members who cross-voted. "That apart, they did not vote for the Congress or defeat our nominee," he added.
Mallya's first stint in the Rajya Sabha from 2002 had been as a Congress-backed Independent. He was among the four MPs that the Congress had got elected. The other three were Janardhana Poojary, M.V. Rajashekaran and Prema Cariappa.