After LS Rout, Some Respite for Cong in K’taka Urban Local Body Election With Over 500 Seats in its Kitty

Bengaluru: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may have won the parliamentary election by a huge margin, but the Congress has come out tops in Karnataka, winning the maximum number of seats in the urban and rural local body (ULB) elections.

In news that will bring respite to the grand old party that has been in the throes of coalition trouble in the state and on the back foot since its debacle in the general election, the Congress won more than 500 of the 1,361 seats that went to polls on April 29 in the state.

The election was held in 1,361 wards of eight city corporations, 33 town municipal corporations, 22 town panchayats and 202 gram panchayats.

Of the 27 seats in the Bengaluru Urban region, the Congress won 17 while the BJP won 10.

In Mandya, despite a drubbing for chief minister HD Kumarswamy’s son Nikhil in the parliamentary election, the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) won 32 of the 69 seats. The Congress came second with 23 wards, while the BJP secured only four seats in its kitty.

Among the town municipal corporations in which 783 wards went to polls, the JD(S) won 102 seats. Independent candidates won the same number of seats.

Meanwhile, the BJP emerged victorious in town panchayats, winning 126 of the 330 seats.

Although the Congress and the JD(S) had a pre-poll alliance for the Lok Sabha elections, the two parties had decided to go solo in the local body polls, similar to what they did in August 2018.

A jubilant Karnataka Congress Pradesh president Dinesh Gundu Rao thanked voters for their support at the local level and said the results came as a motivation.

“These results show how people support us at the local level, party workers have also contributed. The way the BJP has been criticising us over the past few days about how the Congress has lost the people’s mandate… What do they have to say now?” he said in a tweet.

Rao also raised questions about the sanctity of electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the working of the Election Commission.

“I’m surprised at the difference of results. Questions are being raised about EVMs because of the difference in the votes polled and votes counted. The EC must clarify. Our elections should be flawless where one shouldn’t be able to raise questions against the poll panel,” he said.

Polling for the vacant seats in 56 different local bodies across Karnataka was held two days ago. While the Congress won in 509 seats, the BJP bagged 366 wards and the JD(S) has 174 of them.

The rest of the seats were won mostly by Independents (160), while a few were won by smaller parties. Counting for a few seats will be done next week.