Karnataka bypolls: Congress shocks BJP in Ballari Lok Sabha seat

NEW DELHI: The Congress-JD(S) coalition on Tuesday posted a resounding victory in Karnataka bypolls by winning two of the three Lok Sabha and two assembly seats. The BJP managed to retain only Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat. The byelections came as a major setback for the main opposition BJP ahead of the 2019 elections. Here are the latest developments:
* VS Ugrappa of the Congress won the parliamentary seat with a margin of more than 2 lakh votes in Ballari over BJP's J Shantha, the sister of B Sriramulu, a key aide of the Reddys and former MP from there.
* Congress's AS Nyamagouda won the Jamkhandi assembly seat by a margin of over 30,000 votes. He won against BJP's Srikant Kulkarni.
* Anitha Kumaraswamy from the JD(S) won the Ramanagaram assembly seat with a margin of over one lakh votes. She won against BJP's L Chandrashekar, who had pulled out of the contest but officially still remains the party candidate.
* BJP's BY Raghavendra won the Shivamogga parliamentary seat with a margin of over 50,000 votes. He won against former chief minister S Bangarappa's son Madhu Bangarappa of the JD(S).
* JD(S)' LR Shivaramegowda won the Mandya parliamentary seat with a margin of over 30,000 votes. He won against the BJP's new face Dr Siddaramaiah.
* Hailing the victory, JD(S) leader and Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy congratulated Congress leaders in the state and at the Centre. "I also congratulate JD(S) state leaders and workers who worked towards this win. BJP calls JDS-Congress coalition 'Apavitra Maitri', today that contention has been nullified," he said.
* Of the three Lok Sabha seats that went to the bypolls, BJP had held Shivamogga and Ballari and JD(S) Mandya.
* With Tuesday's victory, the Congress-JD(S) alliance's tally will go up to 120 seats in the 224 member assembly where the BJP has 104 MLAs.
* The parliamentary byelections were necessitated after BJP's Yeddyurappa (Shivamogga) and Sriramalu (Ballari), and C S Puttaraju of the JD(S) (Mandya) resigned as MPs on their election to the assembly in May.
* The byelection to the Jamkhandi assembly seat was caused by the death of Congress MLA Siddu Nyamagouda. The Ramanagara seat fell vacant after Kumaraswamy gave up the seat, preferring Chennapatna, the other constituency from where he had won.
* The byelections are being seen as a popularity test of the Congress-JD(S) coalition, cobbled together after the May assembly polls that threw up a fractured verdict.
(With agency inputs)