Karnataka Assembly Election Results LIVE: Congress Meeting Today As Siddaramaiah And Shivakumar Eye CM Post After BJP Defeat

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Karnataka Assembly Election Results LIVE: Congress will hold its first Congressional Legislature Party (CLP) meeting at 5:30 p.m. help the party ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and topple the BJP from its only position in the south. Former Prime Minister Siddaramaiah and KPCC Chairman DK Shivakumar are strong contenders for the post of prime minister.

The Congress emerged victorious in Karnataka’s high-voltage assembly elections, securing 135 seats out of 224, according to the Election Commission of India. The BJP won 65 seats, while JD(S) won 19 seats. Two independent candidates also won in the elections, with Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha and Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha each winning one seat.

The JD-S, which hoped to be a kingmaker, won 19 seats, up from 37 last time, with its share of the vote falling to 13.32 percent from 18 percent in the previous election.

Amid mass celebrations at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi, former party chief Rahul Gandhi said: “I am happy that I contested the Karnataka polls without using hateful, foul language. We fight the polls with love. In Karnataka, the hate market (‘nafrat ka bazar’) closed and the love shops (‘mohabbat ki dukaanein’) opened.

The strength of the poor has defeated the power of crony capitalists and this will happen in all states, he added.

Following the defeat of the Karnataka BJP in the Assembly elections, Prime Minister Basavaraj Bommai tendered his resignation to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot. Karnataka continued its 38-year anti-incumbency trend thanks to the aggressive pro-poor campaign led by the mob leader and Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar. Since 1985, the state has never re-elected a party in power.

The main leader of the Congress, Siddaramaiah, has declared: “The five guarantees that we have given will be approved in the first cabinet meeting and then we will pass an order.” He also said that “the mandate given by the people is to give an administration in favor of the people and not for the enjoyment.” Congress has promised to implement “guarantees” such as “200 units of free energy for all households (Gruha Jyoti), monthly assistance of Rs 2,000 for the female head of the household (Gruha Lakshmi), 10kg of free rice for each member of a BPL home (Anna Bhagya), Rs 3,000 every month for young graduates and Rs 1,500 for graduates (both in the age group 18-25) for two years (YuvaNidhi), and free travel for women on public transport buses ( Shakti).”

Siddaramaiah also criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating: “Modi said that these promises will not be fulfilled as they will burden the state with debts. Modi himself saddled the country with debts. It is the BJP that has pushed the state into bankruptcy.”

Shivakumar expressed his gratitude towards the Gandhi family saying, “I cannot forget that Sonia Gandhi visited me after the BJP people imprisoned me.” He went on to add that he had promised the Gandhi family and the Kharge that he would give them Karnataka.

The morale-boosting win will be instrumental in reviving the party’s electoral prospects ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

BJP candidate CK Ramamurthy won the Jayanagar Karnataka seat by a narrow margin of 16 votes against his congressional rival Soumya Reddy. The announcement was made at the Counting Center of SSMRV College in Jayanagar. The Election Commission ordered a recount of mail-in ballots after Congressional candidate Sowmya Reddy had a narrow lead over the BJP’s CK Ramamurthy.

Watch out for Lok Sabha elections

The Congress party’s victory in the Karnataka assembly polls is likely to help them secure three of the state’s four Rajya Sabha seats that will fall vacant next year. The terms of four members of the state’s Rajya Sabha will end in 2024, including Syed Nasir Hussain, GC Chandrashekhar and L Hanumanthaiah of Congress and Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP.

The BJP, which won 65 of the state’s 224 assembly seats on Saturday, will be able to pick a candidate for the Rajya Sabha next year. Currently, the BJP has six members from the Karnataka Rajya Sabha, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Congress has five members, and the Janata Dal (Secular) has one Rajya Sabha member from the 12 state seats.

Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda is the only JDS member in the Rajya Sabha. The terms of Deve Gowda and Congress Speaker Mallikarjun Kharge will end in 2026, along with those of Iranna Kadali and Narayana Koragappa (both from the BJP). The terms of four other members, including Sitharaman, will end in 2028.

The counting took place where the tension arose when State Speaker of Congress DK Shivakumar, State Unit Worker Chairman Ramalinga Reddy (who is also Sowmya Reddy’s father) and other leaders protested outside the polling booth, claiming the misuse of the government machinery to favor Ramamurthy. Despite his protests, election officials declared Ramamurthy the winner with a margin of just 16 votes. The Congress party has now won 135 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, while the BJP has won 66 seats and the JD(S) has won 19, according to the Election Commission website.

In the outgoing Assembly, the BJP had 116 MLAs, followed by Congress with 69, JD(S) with 29, BSP with one, two independents, one speaker and six vacant seats (due to deaths and resignations to join other parties prior to the polls).

However, results from Bangalore’s Jayanagar constituency are still pending as the Election Commission ordered a recount of the postal ballots due to Congressional candidate Sowmya Reddy’s narrow lead over BJP’s CK Ramamurthy.

(With contributions from PTI)