K’taka bypolls: Cong storms JDS bastion, wins two Lok Sabha seats

Striking a heavy blow to the JDS in its heartland, the ruling Congress in Karnataka on Saturday wrested the Mandya and Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seats from it with impressive margins in the fiercely fought bypolls.

Multi-lingual actress Ramya on her electoral debut defeated C S Puttaraju of JDS in Mandya, the nucleus of his party’s Vokkaliga vote base, by a margin of 67,611 votes, officials said. In Bangalore Rural, it was a spectacular victory for Congress and heartbreaking defeat for JDS as former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha Kumaraswamy lost by a huge margin of over 1.37 lakh votes to ruling party’s D K Suresh, brother of state party leader D.K.Shivakumar.

Kumaraswamy had held the Bangalore Rural seat before he gave it up after winning the May Assembly polls and the Gowda family had invested all its prestige into the battle. He had won the seat by over 1.3 lakh votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. JDS had struck an understanding with the BJP which did not field candidates in both the constituencies where it wields no significant electoral influence. Electoral officials said Suresh polled 5,78,608 votes against Anitha Kumaraswamy’s 4,41,601 votes. In Mandya, Ramya secured 4,84,085 votes against her opponent’s 4,16,474 votes. The poll outcome comes to the Congress just days after it celebrated 100 days in office still euphoric over its spectacular victory in the May assembly polls.

For chief minister Siddaramaiah, the result has come as a big boost to consolidate his position as an adverse outcome would have given a handle to a section of his own partymen not happy with his style of functioning.