The exit polls which went wrong in the past regained their credibility this time as BJP managed an impressive victory in the state. For BJP state president and Dharwad MP Prahlad Joshi it was a big achievement as he did a hat trick and retained his seat trouncing his nearest rival Vinay Kulkarni of Congress by a margin of 113,657 votes.
Joshi polled 545,395 votes while Kulkarni could manage 431,738 votes. By returning Joshi to the Lok Sabha for the third consecutive term, Dharwad constituency kept up its tradition of giving the sitting MP a minimum of two terms in a row. Joshi had won in 2004 against Congress candidate B S Patil by a margin of 83,078 votes and against Manjunath Kunnur of Congress in 2009 by a margin of 135,663 votes.
Interestingly, the third place in number of votes went to NOTA (none of the above) as 12,937 voters opted for NOTA.
This time there were 16 others in the fray. A total of 1,028,289 voters had cast their votes on April 17. Of them 244 were rejected as invalid. The counting which began at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad at 8 AM on Friday concluded at 2 PM. Returning officer and Dharwad deputy commissioner Sameer Shukla announced the result officially and handed over the certificate to Joshi.
The BJP’s share of votes which was 55.96 per cent came down to 53.03 per cent while the Congress secured 41.98 per cent of the votes polled.
Prahlad Joshi led from the beginning and maintained it till the end. Barring Hubli-Dharwad East (SC) and Navalgund assembly segments, Joshi gained lead over Kulkarni in all other seven assembly segment including Shiggaon. Even in Dharwad assembly segment from where Vinay Kulkarni was elected MLA, Joshi won by 24,589 votes.
For a change
No Lingayat contesting on Congress ticket has won here though Vijay Sankeshwar (BJP) won three times as BJP candidate. D P Karmarkar, Sarojini Mahishi (both Brahmins) and D K Naiker (Kuruba) of Congress, Vijay Sankeshwar (Lingayat) and Prahlad Joshi (Brahmin) of BJP have represented the constituency so far.
Congress had in the past fielded Lingayat candidates Veeranna Mattikatti, B S Patil and Manjunath Kunnur unsuccessfully and its gamble of fielding another Lingayat Vinay Kulkarni this time also failed.
