Landslide victory for Congress in Karnataka elections
The Congress party won a big victory in the assembly elections in Karnataka today—a convincing majority of 136 seats. It will be able to form a government on its own.
The Indian National Congress won a big victory in the Karnataka assembly elections today, capturing 136 seats in the 224-seat house. Thus, unlike what some commentators had said, it will be able to form the next government on its own, without leaning on the crutches of HD Deve Gowda and his son HD Kumaraswamy’s Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)).
This was predicted earlier in the day by senior leader of the party and former chief minister Siddaramaiah, when he said, “Congress party will win by getting over 120 seats … . So Congress will come to power by getting over 120 seats on its own strength”.
The outgoing BJP won only 65 seats, while the assume king-maker JD(S) could muster a victory in only 19 seats. Among the other four seats, two were won by independents and one each by KRPP (mining baron and mining scam accused Gali Janardhana Reddy) and SKP-Congress.
As for who will become the chief minister, nothing has been decided yet. The rivalry between Siddaramaiah and state Congress president DK Shivakumar is well-know.
While the former joined Congress after being ousted from JD(S) in 2006 (he was the chief minister from 2013 to 2018), the latter has been a party loyalist. Siddaramaiah, who got a landslide victory in Varuna constituency, earlier said, “I desire to represent my native constituency and place and retire”. Whether he sticks to his word and or sticks his head in in the race for the top post remains to be seen.
The important statistical details of the Karnataka assembly elections can be read in this tweet thread below.
An interesting tweet was posted by Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka and communications chief of the party, Jairam Ramesh, in which he put out a graphic showing that of the 20 assembly constituencies in the state that Rahul Gandhi led his Bharat Jodo Yatra through, the party won in 15, a massive turnaround from the five of these it won in 2018.
