Karnataka: Congress and NDA had to be satisfied with three seats each

BENGALURU: The counting for the six biennial MLC polls was over on Friday, and Congress and BJP-JDS alliance won three seats each. While Congress candidates won from the South East Teachers’, Bangalore Graduates’ and North East Graduates’ constituencies, NDA candidates won from South Teachers’, South West Teachers’ and South West Graduates’ constituencies. The polls were held on June 3.

BJP’s A Devegowda lost the Bangalore Graduate constituency which the saffron party held for many years. Congress’ Ramoji Gowda defeated him by over 11,000 votes. Similarly, in the South East Teachers Constituency, BJP’s YA Narayanaswamy lost to Congress’ DT Srinivas by 767 votes. This constituency too had been represented by BJP for a long time.

Chandrashekar Patil of Congress won from the North East Graduates’ constituency by 4,671 votes. BJP’s Dhananjay Sarji won South West Graduates’ constituency by 6,936 votes. The results of South Teacher’s and South West Teachers’ constituencies were announced on Thursday.

Congress candidates lost in the South Teachers’ and South-West Teachers’ constituencies. Alliance candidates K Vivekananda and SL Bhoje Gowda won the election in the first round of preferential votes. The votes were counted over two days.

This year, three graduates’ constituencies put together had 3.63 lakh voters and three teachers’ constituencies, 70,260 voters, while 78 candidates were in the fray.

With this, Congress will have 29 MLCs in the 75-member Upper House. Of the six seats for which the polls were held on Monday, Congress holds one seat and the remaining five are represented by BJP and JDS. Congress which was hoping to win all the six seats had to settle for three and the alliance partners, who had five seats, lost two to Congress candidates.