BJP's former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa Friday recorded the biggest victory margin of 363,305 votes over his Congress rival Manjunath Bhandary in Shimoga Lok Sabha seat in the state.
Contesting a parliamentary poll for the first time on returning to the party ahead of the 2014 general elections, Yeddyurappa polled 606,216 votes as against 242,911 by Bhandary and retained the party seat, held by his younger son and outgoing lawmaker B.Y. Raghavendra.
Geetha, daughter of former state chief minister S.Bangarappa, and wife of Kannada superstar Shivarajkumar, came third with 240,636 votes, behind Bhandary.
Another former BJP chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda won from Bangalore North by a 229,764 margin against Congress rival C. Narayan Swamy, who contested after winning in the primary inner-party poll held in March on the directive of its vice president Rahul Gandhi. Gowda secured 718,326 votes against 488,562 by Swamy.
BJP's former union minister and five-time winner Ananth Kumar also registered a huge victory margin of 229,020 over his high-profile Congress rival and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilakeni in the prestigious Bangalore South seat. Kumar secured 633,816 votes against 405,241 by Nilekani.
Kumar won in 2009 for the fifth time with a margin of 37,612 votes over Congressman Krishna Byre Gowda, a cabinet minister in the state presently.
In the ruling Congress, it is only D.K. Suresh who got the second highest victory margin in the state - 231,480 from Bangalore Rural, polling 652,723 votes over his BJP rival P. Muniraju Gowda, who secured 421,243 votes.
Riding on its party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's tsunami wave that swept across the country, BJP won 17 of the 28 seats across the state, wresting four from Congress, which bagged nine, wresting three from rival BJP.
Regional outfit Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) bagged remaining two seats but one less than it had won in 2009 polls.
Though Congress improved its tally to nine from six in the 2009 elections, many of its candidates won with lesser margins, with its Raichur (ST) candidate B.V. Nayak, who scrapped through 1,499 votes, the lowest margin in the state.
Similarly, Prakash Hukkeri of Congress defeated Katti Ramesh Vishwanath of BJP by 3,003 votes from Chikkodi in the state's northern region.
Outgoing Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister M. Veerappa Moily of Congress retained Chikkaballapur with a margin of 9,520 votes, defeating B.N.Bache Gowda of BJP and former state chief minister and JD-S leader H.D. Kumaraswamy. Moily polled 4,24,800, Gowda 4,15,280 and Kumaraswamy 3,46,339.
JD-S nominee C.S. Puttaraju wrested Mandya in the Mysore region from outgoing Congress lawmaker Ramya by 5,518 votes, nine months after the latter had won in a by-election in August 2013.
Puttaraju polled 5,24,370 votes as against 5,18,852 votes by Ramya.
