Karnataka legislative council: Cong wins 4 seats, BJP secures 2, JD-S 1

The ruling Congress won four seats, while the opposition BJP secured two and JD-S one seat in the biennial elections to the 75-member Karnataka legislative council here on Friday, the state election commission said.

The ruling Congress won four seats, while the opposition BJP secured two and JD-S one seat in the biennial elections to the 75-member Karnataka legislative council on Friday, the state election commission said.

The ruling Congress led by Siddaramaiah won four seats in biennial elections to the 75-member Karnataka Legislative Council.

The winners are Allam Veerabhadrappa, RB Timmapur, Rizwan Arshad and Veena Achaiah (all Congress), V. Somanna and Lehar Singh Siroya of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and K.V. Narayanaswamy of Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).

Of the 11 vacancies caused by the retirement of outgoing lawmakers, election to four seats from two graduates’ (South & North-West) and two teachers’ (West & North-West) constituencies in the state were held on Thursday. Counting is on June 13.

For the seven seats, in which lawmakers of the 225-member legislative assembly voted on Friday, the ruling party’s all four candidates won on first preferential votes from its 125 members, including the speaker and the nominated lawmaker

A contestant needs a minimum of 29 votes to win a council seat in the state.

Somanna was re-nominated for the council seat.

Though the JD-S, with 40 members, got its first candidate (Narayanaswamy) to win, its second nominee S.M. Venkatapathi could get only 5 of his party’s 11 surplus votes, as six of its rebel members cross voted in favour of Congress and BJP contestants.

JD-S rebel lawmaker Zameer Ahmed, in fact, claimed that he voted for Arshad of the Congress.

Besides Venkatapathi, three independents -B.R. Anil Kumar, K.A. Mohan and V. Hiremath were also defeated in the council poll.