The ruling Congress suffered a complete drubbing in the biennial elections to the Karnataka Legislative Council from Graduates’ and Teachers’ constituencies, including all the three in the North Karnataka region and one in Karnataka South Graduates constituency to its rivals, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal(S).
The BJP not only retained the Karnataka North West Teachers’ constituency but wrested the Karnataka North West Graduates’ constituency from the Congress in North Karnataka region. The JD(S) retained the Karnataka West Teachers’ constituency, where its candidate Basavaraj Horatti registered a historic victory by winning for the seventh consecutive term.
Mr. Horatti, with 7,480 first preference votes, defeated his nearest rival M. Nagaraj of the BJP by a margin of 3,109 votes. Of the total 22,388 votes, 14,939 electors cast their ballot, out of which 784 were rejected and 43 opted for None of The Above (NOTA). T. Ishwar of Congress polled 1,352 votes only.
BJP’s sitting MLC Arun Shahpur polled 5,927 votes and was declared elected in the North West Teachers’ constituency. He defeated B.N. Bannur of the Congress who, however, secured an honourable figure of 4,314 votes. Of the total 26,906 voters, 14877 cast their ballot, out of which 947 were rejected and 38 were NOTA votes.
Nirani Hanmant Rudrappa, brother of former Minister Murugesh Nirani, registered a massive victory by securing 43,605 votes as against 23,518 secured by sitting Congress MLC Mahantesh Shivanand Koujalgi in North West Graduates’ constituency, thereby opening the party’s account in this prestigious constituency. The four-time MLC and national vice-president of Janata Dal (U) M.P. Nadagouda polled just 3,536 votes. As many as 85,744 voters out of the total 1,79,111 electors cast their ballot, of which a huge 10,455 votes were rejected and 214 opted for NOTA.
The counting process, which commenced at 8 a.m. on Monday, concluded around 4 a.m. on Tuesday. The results in respect of West Teachers’ constituency were declared last night while those for two other constituencies in the region were declared on Tuesday morning by the Regional Commissioner and Returning Officer N. Jayaram.
While the BJP leaders described the poll outcome as being in tune with the national trend – in favour of BJP and against Congress, Mr. Horatti attributed his victory to his services and contribution to the teachers’ community during his preceding six terms as MLC. The Congress leaders here were founding wanting to comment.
