Once again, Congress who sits in the opposition faces rout in Karnataka, as the party leading in 2 seats out of 15 in the bypolls that took on the 5th of December. Ravi Gowda, Spokersperson Congress Karnataka said “We are leading only in Shivajiagara in Bengaluru Central and in Hunasur in Mysuru district and trailing behind the BJP in dozen seats”.
Congress and the ruling party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) contested on all 15 assembly seats in this bypolls election whereas the JD-S (Janata Dal-Secular) contested on 12 seats only.
D K Shivakumar, Senior Leader Congress said that the party has “accepted defeat, as the people have accepted most of our defectors who joined the BJP and contested on its Lotus symbol from the seats they resigned and were later disqualified”.
This is the second time in 2019 that the Congress party has faced such appalling defeat in Karnataka, earlier in April-May parliamentary elections, the party only won 1 Lok Sabha seat [Bangalore (Bengaluru) Rural]. Congress contested on 21 seats in the pre-polls in alliance with JD-S who also won just 1 seat from the 7 seats it contested in.
The JD-S, which was, earlier, leading in 2 Assembly seats in the counting initially was seen trailing behind the saffron and the Congress party in Krishnarajapete and Hunasuru.
Interestingly, independent candidate Sharat Kumar Bachegowda is now leading in Hosakote seat in the Bengaluru (Bangalore) Rural district over BJP’s M T B Nagaraj. Bachegowda contested as an independent as BJP ousted him from the party as he filed nomination against Nagaraj, who was the official candidate from BJP.
Nagaraj is the richest amongst all the candidates in this by-elections, he decaled assets worth Rs. 1,230 crores (Rs. 1.2 thousand crores) in his nomination affidavit.
