Karnataka Legislative Council Election –Congress - JDS Alliance Wins 15 out of 25 Seats
Daijiworld Media Network – Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Dec 21: Counting in respect of the state legislative council election held on December 18 has been concluded. All the results have since been announced.

Out of the 25, the Congress Party has bagged ten seats, BJP has got ten, while the JDS has been able to get five seats.  Each of the parties has expressed elation at the result. The election was necessitated in view of the fact that 25 MLCs representing local bodies are set to retire by rotation on January 5.

While JDS state leader, H D Kumaraswamy, in a statement, said that the BJP has been shown the door by the people because of its maladministration. He said that the BJP would not even have got the seats it has won now, but for some mistakes committed by the Congress and the JDS, and that the BJP would have bitten the dust, if these mistakes had not been committed. He said that his party would have got five seats even without the alliance, and the main aim of striking an understanding with the Congress was to defeat the BJP.

On the other hand, Yeddyurappa, who had earlier said that his party would get 15 seats,  expressed happiness at bagging ten seats, claiming that his party has done well, in spite of the fact that it did not have strong base at the local bodies level, and claimed that the party would have done better, if electoral understanding had not been reached between the JDS and the Congress parties.

Tejaswini Gowda, Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Bangalore rural constituency, lashed out at the state Congress working president, D K Shivkumar, holding him responsible for the poor performace of the party in the council election. She sought his immediate resignation.

Former Chief Minister, Dharam Singh, said that the people have tought a lesson to the communal party, BJP, and advised Chief Minister, Yeddyurappa to mend his ways.  The list of the candidates who have won, is as follows:

Congress: T John (Kodagu), Dayanand Reddy (Bangalore City), Srikant Gotnekar (Karwar), Nazeer Ahmed (Kolar), S R Patil (Bagalkot), Srinivas Mane (Dharwad - 1), A V Gayatri (Chikmagalur), Pratapchandra Shetty (Dakshina Kannada - 1), Allamaprabhu (Gulbarga and Veerakumar (Belgaum - 1).

BJP: Srinivas Poojary (Dakshina Kannada - 2), R K Siddaramanna (Shimoga), G H Tippa Reddy (Chitradurga), Basavaraj Patil (Bidar), Shivaraj Sajjan (Dharwad - 2), Halappa Achar (Raichur), Kavajagimutt (Belgaum - 2), Mrityunjay Jinaga (Bellary) and Prof Mallikarjunappa (Mysore - 2).

JDS:  B Ramakrishna (Mandya), Patel Shivaram (Hassan), Sandesh Nagaraj (Mysore - 1), Dr Hulinaikar (Tumkur) and E Krishnappa (Bangalore Rural).