The ruling Congress Party in Karnataka yesterday won two Lok Sabha seats in the state for which by-elections were held on August 21, humbling the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in its strongholds.
D K Suresh of the Congress defeated Anita Kumaraswamy of the JD-S in Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency by over 126,000 votes. In Mandya, about 80km from Bangalore, actress Ramya of the Congress beat C S Puttaraju of the JD-S by nearly 70,000 votes.
Anita is the daughter-in-law of JD-S president and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda. She is married to H D Kumaraswamy, the J-DS state chief and former chief minister.
Shocked by the loss, Kumaraswamy announced he was resigning as state party chief and was also thinking of quitting as leader of the opposition in the assembly.
Announcing the results, an Election Commission spokesman said Suresh got over 575,000 votes to Anita’s 441,000. The Bangalore Rural constituency has over 2mn voters, of whom nearly 52% exercised their franchise.
Ramya polled over 480,000 votes while Puttaraju received 416,000. The constituency has around 1.6mn voters and saw over 58% turnout.
The votes were counted yesterday.
The JD-S, though backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), failed to retain the two seats it had won in 2009 - Bangalore Rural by Kumaraswamy and Mandya by N Cheluvarayaswamy.
Both quit the Lok Sabha after getting elected to the Karnataka assembly in May, necessitating the by-elections.
The BJP withdrew its candidates to avoid what it called a “split in anti-Congress votes.”
Though the winners will have less than a year’s term in the Lok Sabha as general elections are due by April-May next, the Congress and the JD-S had turned the by-elections into battle of prestige.
The Congress wanted to win the seats as the by-elections were the first to be held after the party returned to power on its own in May after nine years.
A beaming Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told reporters in Bangalore: “I had said earlier the Congress will win both seats. This is not just the defeat of the JD-S, but also of the BJP and the Karnataka Janata Party (led by former BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa).”
Ramya is the first actress from the state to enter parliament.
The glamorous actress is considered the “golden girl” of Kannada cinema as she has given several hits.
She has also acted in Tamil and Telugu films.
Ramya joined the Youth Congress in 2011 and had campaigned for the party in the assembly elections held in May.
Tragedy struck her minutes after she filed her nomination papers for the Mandya by-election on August 3 as her foster father R T Narayan, 77, who had accompanied her, collapsed and died.
Narayan was an industrialist and was her foster father since she was around five years.
Ramya has not spoken about her biological father and not much is also known about him.
Karnataka had earlier sent popular Kannada actor M H Ambareesh to the Lok Sabha, also on Congress ticket. He hails from Mandya and is popular as “He man of Mandya.” He led the Ramya’s poll campaign.
Ambareesh is now state housing minister.