By Noor Sheriff for TwoCircles.net,
Karnataka was one of the few states in the country which saw Indian National Congress provide a semblance of a fight to the BJP. Out of the 28 seats on offer, 17 were won by BJP, 9 by Congress and 2 by JD(S). BJP’s tally reduced by 2 seats compared to the previous Lok Sabha. The JD(S) too reduced its tally by 1 while the Congress gained 3 seats.
In terms of vote share, BJP had 42% vote share and Congress closely followed it at 40%. The individual seats won by each party are given below:
BJP: Bagalkot, Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Bangalore South, Belgaum, Bellary, Bidar, Bijapur, Dakshina Kannada, Davanagere, Dharwad, Haveri, Koppal, Mysore, Shimoga, Udupi Chikmagalur, Uttara Kannada.
Congress: Bangalore Rural, Chamarajanagar, Chikkballapur, Chikkodi, Chitradurga, Gulbarga, Kolar, Raichur, Tumkur.
JD(S): Hassan, Mandya.
Some of the seats won narrowly by Congress were Chikkballapur (9520 votes) by the Ex Petroleum Minister Mr. Veerappa Moily, and Chikkodi (3003 votes) by Prakash Hukeri and Raichur (1499 votes) by BV Nayak.
Some of the seats that BJP won narrowly were Davanagere (17607 votes) by G M Siddeshwara, and Mysore (31608 votes) by journalist turned debutant politician Pratap Simha.
Interestingly Mysore is the home district of the current Chief Minister Siddaramiah. Despite of all the negative media coverage, Mr. Yeddyurappa proved that his hold on the masses was intact and won his seat with the largest margin in the state in this election. (3.6 Lac votes).
Bangalore North saw the former CM Sadanada Gowda poll over 7 Lac votes and comfortably win by a margin of over 2.25 Lacs. The State saw both the Muslim candidates of the Congress Mr. Rizwan Arshad from Bangalore Central and Mr. Saleem Ahmed from Haveri lose to BJP candidates. Both Mr. Rizwan Arshad and Mr. Saleem polled over 4 lacs votes individually. Another surprise defeat was of actress Ramya by a narrow margin of 5,500 votes to the JD(S) candidate Mr. Puttiraju.
Some of the other prominent winners from BJP are P.C. Mohan, B. Sreeramulu , Ananth Kumar , Pralhad Joshi, Shobha Karandlaje and Anantkumar Hegde
The prominent winners from Congress are D K Suresh , M Veerappa Moily, , K.H.Muniyappa, Mr Mallikarjun Kharge.
The prominent losers from the state are : Shankar Bidari- Bagalkot (Ind), V. Balakrishnan – Bangalore Central (AAP), C.Narayana Swamy – Bangalore North (Cong), Nandan Nilekani – Bangalore South (Cong), N. Dharam Singh- Bidar (Cong), Janardhana Poojary – Dakshina Kannada (Cong), Geeta Shivarajkumar – Shimoga (JDS).
The pocket borough of the former PM Mr. H.D. Devegowda did not throw any surprises while his son Mr. Kumarswamy lost to Mr. Veerappa Moily in Chikballapur. Mr. Kumarswamy was in fact relegated to the third position.
It is evident that Muslims had voted largely for the Congress. The anti incumbency against the Union Govt and the Modi “wave” have ensured BJP’s tally did not fall drastically. The Congress too seem to hold on to the previous seats due to the clean image of the current CM Mr. Siddaramiah.
The much publicized AAP campaign did not seem to have taken off. The highest votes for AAP (39000 votes) were polled by Mr. V Balakrishna of Bangalore Central. An interesting trivia about AAP fighting all the seats in its debut election is that the total votes polled by all its candidates is 2.54 Lac votes across the state. However, the number of people choosing NOTA is 2.57 Lac votes across the state. The reason quoted by AAP to field candidates across state without any preparation and party structure did not seem to have cut much ice with the people.
The JD(S) seem to be withering away as the third force in State politics. BSP too has ended most seats as a poor third and fourth in most seats. The situation may be ripe for a genuine left of Center party to make in roads in the State.
The real winner of these elections seems to be the current CM Mr. Siddaramiah. The poor performance of the Congress in the rest of the country will ensure that it treats its last regional satrap with respect. However, the challenge for Mr. Siddaramiah will be the re-emergence of Mr. Yeddyurappa from the BJP.
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Noor Sheriff is a Bangalore based activist. He can be reached on Twitter at @noorsheriff.