The BJP which sought to ride on the Modi factor won 17 seats -- down from 25 in 2019 Lok Sabha elections -- while its NDA partner, JD(S) won two constituencies, according to Election Commission officials
Representational Pic/File
The BJP yielded ground to the Congress in Karnataka, as the ruling party boosted its Lok Sabha seats tally to nine on Tuesday, with the results being declared for polls held to 28 segments in the state.
The BJP which sought to ride on the Modi factor won 17 seats -- down from 25 in 2019 Lok Sabha elections -- while its NDA partner, JD(S) won two constituencies, according to Election Commission officials.
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Having scored a thumping victory in the Assembly elections, which witnessed a triangular fight between the Congress, BJP and JD(S) in May last year, the ruling party was determined to put up a strong show but fell short of its expectations in the polls, in which the party was hoping to get at least 15 seats.
The Congress had banked heavily on the five guarantee schemes it had launched in the state which it had hoped would help reap rich electoral dividends. The grand old party had won a mere one seat out of the total 28 in the State in the 2019 general elections.
Karnataka is the most important State for the BJP in south India as it's only here that it had held power in the past.
After the loss in the Assembly election last year, BJP had strived to improve its prospects in the Lok Sabha polls, leveraging the Modi factor and had set an ambitious task of repeating its 2019 Lok Sabha performance, when it had swept the polls.
Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna, who is facing allegations of sexually abusing several women and also recording them, was defeated by Congress' Shreyas M Patel. He has already been suspended by the JD(S).
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani, registered a win in Gulbarga, against Umesh Jadhav of the BJP, which won all the three seats coming under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits and Bangalore Rural.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar's brother and MP D K Suresh was defeated by eminent cardiologist and former PM H D Deve Gowda's son-in-law Dr C N Manjunath of BJP from Bangalore Rural. Interestingly, this was the only seat Congress had won in 2019.
Suresh's defeat is seen as a major setback for Shivakumar, who was nursing Chief Ministerial ambitions.
Three former Chief Ministers -- H D Kumaraswamy of JD(S), and Basavaraj Bommai and Jagadish Shettar (both BJP) -- won in their Lok Sabha segments of Mandya, Haveri and Belgaum, respectively.
Union Ministers Pralhad Joshi and Shobha Karandlaje (BJP) posted wins in Dharwad and Bangalore North Lok Sabha segments, respectively, according to the Election Commission, while another Union Minister Bhagwanth Khuba was defeated in Bidar by Karnataka Minister Eshwar Khandre's son Sagar Khandre.
Also among those who won are erstwhile Mysuru royal family scion Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar of BJP in Mysore, party veteran B S Yediyurappa's son B Y Raghavendra in Shimoga, and saffron party's youth wing chief Tejasvi Surya (Bangalore South).
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah conceded that the Congress' performance was not on the expected lines as he had expected winning somewhere between 15 and 20 seats but the calculations went wrong.
"However, in 2019 we had won only one seat but this time we got nine seats. Our vote share this time in Karnataka is 45.34 per cent, BJP's vote share is 46.04 per cent, which means the difference is less than one per cent." he added.
Further, Siddaramaiah said that in 2019, the BJP's vote share was 51.38 per cent and Congress share was 31.88 per cent.
In the 2019 general elections, the saffron party won 25 seats, and also had managed to ensure the victory of an independent backed by it. Many BJP leaders had even repeatedly claimed that the party would win all 28 seats this time.
For JD(S), this Lok Sabha election was considered to be crucial, after it registered its worst performance in over two decades in the 2023 Assembly polls in Karnataka, bagging only 19 seats.
So, in what is largely being seen as an "alliance of compulsion", the JD(S) with a hope to better its prospects had forged an alliance with BJP in the backdrop of the ruling Congress' alleged "onslaught" and attempts to weaken the party by wooing its leaders and legislators.
According to leaders in both parties, the coordination among their workers seems to have worked in their favour as the transfer of votes happened between them in the Old Mysuru region.
It was a role reversal of sorts for former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led JD(S) in this election compared to 2019, as the party was running a coalition government with Congress back then and had fought the election together. It had then emerged victorious in one constituency -- Hassan.
Congress defeat in Mysore is seen as a huge setback to Siddaramaiah, as it is his home district, and he had invested a lot of time and energy camping, strategising and campaigning.
Among those who also lost are expelled BJP leader K S Eshwarappa and film star Shivrajkumar's wife Geetha Shivrajkumar of Congress in Shimoga, who had contested against Yediyurappa's son Raghavendra.
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