Bengaluru: The Karnataka Congress has suffered a jolt just before counting of by-elections held for two seats in the state, by losing two sitting MLAs in the Legislative Assembly.
In the recounting of Sringeri Assembly constituency, the sitting Congress MLA T D Raje Gowda has lost by a narrow margin of 52 votes against BJP candidate D N Jeevaraj, while the Karnataka Legislative Assembly Secretariat has issued a notification, terminating the membership of Dharwad MLA Vinay Kulakarni, who has been convicted for 10 years imprisonment in the murder of Yogesh Gowda, a BJP leader.
On Saturday, quoting Sec 8 of People's Representative Act, the Legislative Assembly Secretary M K Vishalakshi issued the notification, terminating the membership of Vinay Kulakarni.
Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court, which was hearing an election petition regarding a dispute in the postal votes at Sringeri constituency had ordered the election commission to conduct recounting of postal votes and declared the result immediately.The recounting was taken up on Saturday.
During the 2023 general elections, Congress candidate T D Raje Gowda was declared elected by a margin of 201 votes. BJP candidate D N Jeevaraj had approached the Karnataka High Court, expressing his reservation about counting of the postal ballots.
The counting went on till late in the night. During 2023 counting, Congress had got 692 postal ballots, while BJP had got 569 postal ballots. However, during the retotalling on Saturday night, BJP got 567 postal votes, two less than the 2023 votes. However, Congress only 314 postal votes and over 314 invalid votes had been counted in favour of the Congress.This has given an edge of 52 votes to BJP.
Though the court had directed that the returning officer in the counting station should issue the certificate for the winning candidate on the spot, the Congress, after losing, made an allegation of box tampering. The Returning Officer decided to send the entire file to the Chief Election Officer in Bengaluru, who will be issuing the certificate to the winning candidate on Monday.
