[The EC going against any, whatever, good sense, announced bypoll for three Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, with the coming Lok Sabha poll due in less than six months. Conceivably, with the hope to trigger a rift in the Cong.-JD(S) coalition and thereby bringing down the morale of the Congress and boosting that of the BJP, just on the eve of a few crucial state polls in the Indian heartland to be soon followed by the general election. In the event, it has badly backfired.
***The Bellary, the (presumed) bastion of the (illegal) mining barons - the Reddy brothers, back in the BJP with a big noise, outcome has come as a hard slap in the face of the BJP, led by the Modi-Shah duo.*** Not to forget, the report below is carried by a news portal which, usually, operates as a Modi megaphone. <<The Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance in Karnataka received a huge psychological boost ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by winning two Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats for which by-elections were held on Saturday. Though the results in three Assembly seats were on expected lines and the BJP managed to retain Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat, the crushing defeat the party candidate suffered in the Ballari Lok Sabha constituency should send alarm bells to the central BJP leadership.>> (Excerppted from sl. no. I. below.)] I/II. https://www.firstpost.com/politics/karnataka-by-election-results-2018-ahead-of-2019-bjp-should-focus-on-alternative-strategies-to-replace-bsy-factor-in-state-5511991.html/amp?fbclid=IwAR1kSMa-l7kYanZxIa5UN82hujxH6OM_tO3TJwCa71n9lMSwmiFV4heCYbk#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s Karnataka by election results 2018: Ahead of 2019, BJP should focus on alternative strategies to replace BSY factor in state Firstpost • Nov 06, 2018 16:13 IST By Ramakrishna Upadhya The Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance in Karnataka received a huge psychological boost ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by winning two Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats for which by-elections were held on Saturday. Though the results in three Assembly seats were on expected lines and the BJP managed to retain Shivamogga Lok Sabha seat, the crushing defeat the party candidate suffered in the Ballari Lok Sabha constituency should send alarm bells to the central BJP leadership. State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa’s son, BY Raghavendra won from Shivamogga by a smaller margin of over 50,000 votes, defeating the alliance candidate, JD(S)' Madhu Bangarappa. There was a neck-to-neck fight initially, before Raghavendra pulled away after ten rounds. File image of former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. PTI Yeddyurappa had won this seat by a margin of 3.30 lakh in 2014 when the Congress and the JD(S) had fought the election separately. The ruling JD(S) retained both the Ramanagara Assemly and Mandya Lok Sabha Seats — in its Vokkaliga stronghold — by impressive margins, not only because of the Congress' backing for the first time, but also for the reason that BJP bungled with the selection of its candidates. Chief minister HD Kumaraswamy's wife Anitha Kumaraswamy had a virtual walkover as her BJP opponent L Chandrasekhar — who was an election-eve import from the Congress — retired from contest and returned to Congress just two days before the polling. In a constituency which saw a low voter turnout of only 54 percent, Anitha Kumaraswamy secured 1.25 lakh votes as against 15,000 votes for the ‘lotus symbol’ in the absence of Chandrasekhar. Considering that the BJP had polled only 4,000 votes last time, it was an improvement on their performance. In the Mandya Lok Sabha seat, LR Shivarame Gowda of the JD(S) won by a margin of 2.89 lakh votes. BJP’s Siddaramaiah polled 2.05 lakh votes, which is its best performance in the district. The Jamkhandi Assembly seat went to Anand Nyamagouda of the Congress, who was put up after his father, Siddu Naymagouda’s death in a road accident. The sympathy factor pushed Anand’s margin to over 39,000 votes against Srikanth Kulkarni of the BJP, who had lost to Siddu by around 2,000 votes in May 2018. The Ballari Lok Sabha seat reserved its biggest shock for the BJP as its candidate J Shantha was trounced by VS Ugrappa of the Congress by a margin of 2.87 lakh votes. Shantha’s elder brother, Sriramulu had won this seat by over 1.3 lakh votes in 2014 and had resigned six months ago after being elected to the Assembly from Malkalmuru constituency. It was a prestige fight for him and ‘mining baron’ Janardhana Reddy, who considered Ballari as their fiefdom not long ago. Janardhana Reddy has been expelled from the BJP after being indicted in the mining scam, but he continues to identify himself with the party. Reddy made some controversial remarks during the election campaign, sitting outside Ballari as has been debarred by the Supreme Court from entering the district till the cases filed against him are resolved. Pleased at the outcome, Kumaraswamy said the JD(S) and the Congress would carry their alliance to the coming Lok Sabha elections as well and expressed confidence of winning "24 out of 28 seats," in the state. Within hours of the results being declared, the Congress leaders began competing with each other for taking credit for the ‘success.’ DK Shivakumar, who was in charge of the election campaign in Ballari, declared that “Ugrappa was his choice," and selecting someone from the Valmiki community had paid rich dividends to the party. Not to be left behind, former chief minister Siddaramaiah said he had “predicted” the Congress victory from Ballari by a margin of over two lakh votes and affirmed that the understanding with the JD(S) would continue into the Lok Sabha elections. As far as BJP is concerned, party president Amit Shah will be a worried man as the by-elections have shown the ‘damage’ the Congress-JD(S) alliance can do in the coming Lok Sabha polls. He will also have to seriously ponder over lack of cohesion within the state BJP and Yeddyurappa’s inability to take anyone together. But, considering that the Parliament elections are not too far away and there is no one of Yeddyurappa’s stature in Karnataka BJP to replace him immediately, the central BJP will have to spend a lot of time working out alternative strategies to improve the party’s prospects in the state. II. AA. Election results By elections, 2018 Party Candidate Votes % ± INC V.S Ugrappa 6,28,635 BJP J.Shantha 3,85,205 General Election, 2014: Bellary Party Candidate Votes % ± BJP B. Sreeramulu 5,34,406 51.09 INC N. Y. Hanumanthappa 4,49,262 42.95 JD(S) R. Ravinayaka 12,613 1.21 NOTA None of the above 11,320 1.08 Majority 85,144 8.14 Turnout 10,45,772 70.29 (Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellary_(Lok_Sabha_constituency)>.) Forget about the alliance, the BJP vote has nosedived from 5,34,406 to 3,85,205. BB. General Election, 2014:Shimoga Party Candidate Votes % ± BJP B. S. Yeddyurappa 6,06,216 53.63 +3.05 INC Manjunath Bhandary 2,42,911 21.49 -23.55 JD(S) Geetha Shivarajkumar 2,40,636 21.29 AAP K. G. Sreedhar 7,542 0.67 BSP Kunaje Manjunatha Gowda 5,053 0.45 -0.41 NOTA None of the Above 7,077 0.63 Margin of victory 3,63,305 32.14 +26.60 Turnout 11,29,008 72.27 +5.81 (Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimoga_(Lok_Sabha_constituency)>.) This time, the BJP has polled 5,43,306, as against JD9S)-Cong.: 4,91,158 votes. (Source: < https://vijaykarnataka.indiatimes.com/district/shivamogga/karnataka-by-elections-shimoga-lok-sabha-bypoll-results-2018-live-updates/articleshow/66521381.cms >.) So, the BJP is down from 6,06,216 53.63 to 5,43,306. CC. By Election, 2018: Mandya Party Candidate Votes % ± JD(S) L.R.SHIVARAMEGOWDA 5,69,320 BJP D.R.SIDDARAMAIHA 2,44,377 Majority 3,24,943 General Election, 2014: Mandya Party Candidate Votes % ± JD(S) C. S. Puttaraju 5,24,370 43.95 INC Ramya 5,18,852 43.49 BJP Prof. B. Shivalingaiah 86,993 7.29 BSP M. Krishnamurthy 22,391 1.88 KAP H. K. Krishna 8,604 0.72 NOTA None of the Above 6,021 0.50 Majority 5,518 0.46 Turnout 11,92,638 71.45 (Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandya_(Lok_Sabha_constituency)>.) Here, BJP vote share has jumped, but, only to suffer a resounding defeat even then. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
