Congress draws a blank in state. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has bagged five seats in the recently held by-elections for eight constituen-cies in Karnataka. JD(S) has bagged the other three while the principle opposition party drew a blank. With these five seats, BJP now has a majority 115 seats in the 224-member Karnataka legislative assembly. The JD(S) increased its tally to 26 seats and the Congress remains at 77.
The by-elections were necessitated when seven MLAs — four from Janata Dal (Secular), and three from the Congress — resigned following elections to the Karnataka Assembly in May. The resignation of the Congress and JD(S) MLAs and their subsequent move to the BJP was termed as ‘Operation Lotus’. Through these wins, the BJP has successfully concluded ‘Operation Lotus’.
Umesh Katti, Balachandra Jarkiholi and Anand Asno-tikar, all ministers in the BJP government, have won from their respective constituencies.
The Janata Dal (Secular), led by father and son duo of H D Deve Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy bagged three seats, which included the election of H D Deve Gowda’s daughter-in-law Anitha Kumaraswamy from Madhugiri.
Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa said, “This unprecedented verdict given in our party’s favour has further increased our responsibility. We will strive to live |up to the people’s expectations by speeding up development and giving good governance.” “The huge victory margins of our party candidates are indicative of the people’s approval of our programmes, policies and the performance of the government during the last seven months,” he added.
The BJP has decided not to remove or disturb the five independents who supported the party in ministry formation seven months ago. “When we fell short of three seats for a simple majority, the independents came to our rescue. The same arrangement will continue and the apple cart will not be disturbed as the independents backed our government during the most critical times,” Yeddyurappa said.
