Bangalore: Congress wrests Karnataka with thumping win, BJP routed
Bangalore, May 8 (IANS): The Congress Wednesday won a thumping victory in Karnataka to wrest power after a seven year gap, crushing the BJP in a key election ahead of next year's Lok Sabha ballot.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi voiced their satisfaction over the Karnataka result that ended five years of tumultuous rule by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the southern state.
Congress activists celebrated wildly all across Karnataka as a vote count that began at 8 a.m. showed that the party was set to finish with some 120 seats in the 225-member assembly -- seven more than the half-way mark.
The Congress victory "is a clear result against the ideology of the BJP", Manmohan Singh said in New Delhi.
"The people of the country know what's what and they will reject the BJP ideology as the result in Karnataka shows."
The BJP, which stormed to power in Karnataka in 2008 with the hope of expanding rapidly in south India, was routed. Officials said it may finish along with the Janata Dal-Secular (J-S) at 39 seats each.
At one point, the BJP trailed behind the JD-S at the third spot.
The Congress had ruled Karnataka on its own until April 2004. It later governed the state with JD-S backing till February 2006. The state slipped into JD-S and BJP hands after that.
Even as speculation mounted within the Congress on who could lead the Karnataka government, the BJP admitted defeat.
Former BJP chief minister Sadananda Gowda said: "We failed to rise to the occasion. We could not reach out to the voter with the development work we did in Karnataka."
BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy was more forthright: "We have lost badly... There are many reasons for it. We will have to introspect."
Congress leaders gloated and said they had expected a victory because of the way the BJP ruled Karnataka in the last five years, with infighting seeing three changes in the chief minister's post.
The BJP government was also mired in corruption charges.
Finally, B.S. Yeddyurappa, who led the BJP to victory in 2008 and become its first chief minister, quit the party and formed the rival Karnataka Janata Party (KJP).
Although the KJP is expected to bag only eight seats in a house of 225, it played a major role in splitting the pro-BJP vote.
JD-S leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, who had hoped perhaps to be kingmaker, said he was happy to win almost 40 seats.
"We will be happy to be the main opposition. We will play our role well," the former chief minister said.
The Samajwadi Party opened its account for the first time in Karnataka, winning the Channapatna assembly seat some 60 km from Bangalore.
The Karnataka result was a morale booster for the Congress at a time the BJP has refused to let parliament run demanding the resignation of central ministers Ashwani Kumar and Pawan Kumar Bansal for impropriety.
The victory was just what the party needed ahead of the general elections due in 2014 but which some say could be held earlier.
Said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi: "We are winning because people have seen through and rejected the BJP."
The Karnataka rout saw several BJP leaders lose, as the party fared poorly both in urban and rural areas all across the state.
The assembly has 224 elected and one nominated members. The election took place Sunday for 223 seats. Polling was cancelled in one place as the BJP candidate died.
Narendra Modi exposed in Karnataka, say Cong Ministers
New Delhi, May 8 (PTI): Buoyed by its success in Karnataka, Congress Ministers today said this was an "innings defeat" for BJP and the verdict has exposed its star campaigner Narendra Modi.
"In Karnataka, the match is over and BJP has suffered an innings defeat. It will now blame the bat, the ball and the pitch for its defeat. People have now seen the real face of BJP and in Karnataka, people have discarded them lock, stock and barrel," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath told reporters outside Parliament House.
He said BJP stands "clearly exposed" and this would be the trend in the forthcoming elections for five state assemblies and general elections to be held next year. Nath said in the last five months, BJP has lost power in three states including Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the north and Karnataka in the south.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said the victory was a "shot in the arm" for Congress and credited party President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party Vice President Rahul Gandhi for the victory in polls.
When asked what message did the election results give to Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi, he said, "The message is no Modi."
Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayansamy said, "BJP brought Narendra Modi in Karnataka, Narendra Modi has drowned and BJP has been finished there."
"We have won despite the disinformation campaign being run against us by BJP in the country and I thank the people of Karnataka for proving them wrong," he said.
Hurt in Karnataka, BJP looks to keep up anti-Congress campaign
New Delhi, May 8 (IANS): Disappointed by the poll verdict in Karnataka, the BJP Wednesday sought to downplay the impact of the results on the momentum of its campaign against the UPA government and said it will work on correctives.
BJP leaders said that the result in Karnataka was "disappointing" and "below expectations", but asserted that the issue of corruption will hit the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in the Lok Sabha polls due in 2014.
The BJP suffered a major jolt in Karnataka, the only southern state it ruled, with its tally expected to be just about 40 seats. It had won 110 seats in the 2008 assembly elections.
Elections were held May 5 to 223 seats of the 224-member Karnataka assembly, which has one seat reserved for the Anglo-Indian community. In the counting of votes Wednesday, the Congress coasted an easy victory.
The BJP was late afternoon staring at the ignominy of finishing third behind the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular. Its prospects were hurt in several constituencies by former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who floated his Karnataka Janatha Paksha (KJP) after quitting the BJP.
"There is a lesson in every election. The party will sit and analyse what went wrong," BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told IANS.
He said corruption was an issue in the Karnataka polls and added that it would work against the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
He said that electionsb to four more state assemblies were scheduled at the end of the year and the BJP had bright prospects in all of them.
BJP leader Siddharth Nath Singh said the party failed to address the issue of corruption in Karnataka and that caste calculus also did not work in favour of the party.
"The results are disappointing," he said.
Defending the party's decision to replace Yeddyurappa as the chief minister, Siddharth Nath Singh the decision was taken in the wake of Karnataka Lokayukta report.
Yeddyurappa's KJP was poised to win seven seats in the largely four-cornered contest in the state.
"We stood for fighting against corruption but failed in political management of the issue," a party leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told IANS.
The leader said Yeddyurappa's exit had dented the party's support base and that there could be realignment with the former chief minister, who belongs to the politically significant Lingayat community.
"His exit has made a difference. It (realignment or joining back) is possible before Lok Sabha polls," the BJP leader said.
He said the party was expecting to win at least 60 seats in Karnataka.
He also sought to delink Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and its other central leaders, who had campaigned in Karanataka, from the poll outcome.
"It was a state election. Modi should be judged for his peformance in Gujarat or if he is made campaign in-charge for the Lok Sabha polls," the leader said.
Political analyst Aswini K. Ray said that the BJP had "goofed up" Karnataka and results were "a predictable set-back" for the party.
He said that the BJP failed to muster skills to prevent an impending defeat.
"The verdict in Karnataka would put little wind in the Congress sails after the tottering situation of scams," said Ray, a former professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
He said the Karnataka results "had weakened" the BJP's campaign against the Congress-led central government on corruption, but the UPA government will continue to face the heat on scandals that had surfaced during its rule.
Ray also said that Karnataka results could spur demands in the BJP to take an unambiguous decision on the prime ministerial candidate and declare Modi for the post.
BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said that the Congress should not feel too elated over the Karanataka poll outcome.
"If the Congress feels confident, let them prepone (Lok Sabha) elections," he said.
CM Shettar resigns
Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar Wednesday resigned after his ruling BJP faced a humiliating defeat in the 14th state legislative assembly elections held Sunday.
According to a Raj Bhavan communique, Governor H.R. Bhardwaj accepted the resignation of Shettar and his council of ministers.
The governor has requested Shettar to continue in office till the formation of the new government by the Congress, which secured a comfortable majority of 121 in the 225-member assembly.
Shettar, whom the BJP projected as its chief ministerial candidate in the assembly polls, however, won from the Hubli-Dharwad central constituency, defeating his nearest Congress rival Mahesh Nalwad by 17,754 votes, polling 58,201 votes.
"We accept the verdict of the people and offer constructive cooperation to the new government as a responsible opposition party. I take this opportunity to thank the people of the state for give the BJP an opportunity to serve them in the past five years," Shettar told reporters here after all the results to the 223 constituencies were declared.
Admitting that the party lost the election due to infighting and corruption charges against some of its members and ministers who left the party later, Shettar said unforeseen and unfortunate developments within the party overshadowed its good work.
"We accept the people's mandate and assure them to work earnestly by rebuilding the party. The verdict is a negative vote for our party than a positive vote for the Congress," Shettar added.