Bangalore : The BJP on Friday regained its only bastion below the Vindhyas by bagging 17 of the 28 seats to the Lok Sabha in Karnataka and joined the wave of saffron that swept the Hindi heartland in the just concluded elections to the Lower House of Parliament.
The Congress, that was expected to bag 20 seats, ended up with a poor tally nine seats with the Janata Dal (S) getting just two seats. The results will surely make Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s future very uncomfortable and a revolt in the Karnataka unit is in the offing. There are strong and audible murmurs that Siddramaiah should take responsibility and step down.
The BJP did its arithmetic right in getting in Lingayat strongman and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa into its fold. He seems to have swung the 17 percent vote bank of his community back to the BJP. The BJP also made a right move by allowing B Sreeramulu, one of the Bellary trio, to merge his party. Sreeramulu, once a close aide of mining baron B Janardhana Reddy, had joined the BJP ahead of elections leaving behind the BSR Congress which he had founded after deserting the saffron party two years before.
In the big stake election where a former prime minister, five former chief ministers and two Union ministers were in the fray, the only ones to lose out were Dharam Singh of the Congress and H D Kumaraswamy. While Singh lost to the BJP state unit chief Prhalad Joshi in Dharwad, Kumaraswamy lost in Chikballapur where Veerappa Moily of the Congress trounced him.
The winners included former PM H D Deve Gowda (Hassan), B S Yeddyurappa (Shimoga), D Sadananda Gowda (Bangalore North), Union Minister Mallikarjuna Kharge (Gulbarga) and Union Minister Muniyappa (Kolar).
R S Menon
