Karnataka by-election results live update: Parties on tenterhooks as prestige at stake

In view of the humiliating defeat in the Karnataka by-polls, former CM Siddaramaiah has reportedly resigned, but Ahmed Patel, political secretary to AICC chief Sonia Gandhi has not accepted it. 

KS Eshwarappa, senior BJP leader says people have lost faith in Congress and JD(S) and voted for a stable government. He said, “BJP workers worked with unity. Even our booth-level workers gave their best. On the other hand, there was no unity among leaders. Siddaramaiah was the only one who worked hard. Mallikarjuna Kharge, DK Shivakumar all did not have unity in their canvassing.”

Today, the people of Karnataka have shown that Congress and JD(S) can’t backstab them. The people have voted for a government that is stable and strong. 

On securing 12 seats in the by-elections, BL Santosh, national organising secretary said, “Mandya & Chikkaballapura were two districts where @BJP4Karnataka had never won assembly polls ... With today’s victory in both there is no district in state BJP hasn’t won elections at some point of time.” 

Buoyed by the success of his party in the by-elections, CM BS Yediyurappa said he wouldn’t renege on this promise and would offer ministerial berths to the winners in the elections.

BJP Rajya Sabha Rajeev Chandrasekhar has former CMs HD Kumaraswamy and Siddaramaiah and the former Speaker Ramesh Kumar as the saffron party more or less romped home to victory.

Goddess of victory has blessed two more BJP candidates as Ramesh Jarkiholi wins by 27890 votes in Gokak while ST Somashekhar wins from Yeshwantpur by over 25k votes 

MLAs in both Congress and JD(S) are disgruntled. If they wish to come to our party, we will welcome them. It is 17 of those MLAs who came to us, we did not call them. We want to give good governance. 

The list of BJP candidates who have declared won so far:

BC Patil from Hirekerur
K Sudhakar from Chikkaballapur
Byrati Basavaraj from KR Puram
K Gopalaiah from Mahalakshmi Layout
Narayanagowda from KR Pete 
Shivaram Hebbar from Yellapura 
Ramesh Jarkiholi from Gokak 
Srimant Patil from Kagwad 
Anand Singh from Vijayanagar

BC Patil says, “We were declared as disqualified. But the people of our constituency have voted for us. People have voted in our favour. We will work towards developing our constituency.” 

BY Vijayendra said, “I am happy that we won. This will enable us to take up more developmental works in the constituency. Some people threw slippers at our candidate. But now, they themselves will come and garland him with flowers.” 

Considered to be a JD(S) bastion, KR Pete has voted in favour of Narayana Gowda who defected to the BJP. 

Hunsur voters have clearly voted against Vishwanath as HP Manjunath, Congress candidate gets 55217. 

Vishwanath: 34396

Manjunath: 55217 

Seems like Siddaramaiah's campaigning has not worked in Chikkaballapura as Sudhakar wins the by-elections 

BJP has had the last laugh in Kagwad as Srimant Pati has won 

Congress leader DKS Shivakumar stays defiant in spite of a possible humiliating loss for the party. He adds that they will not allow the party to fall into an abyss of loss 

A visibly relaxed CM BS Yediyurappa is seen having a chat with his senior BJP leaders at his house as his party is surely running towards getting majority seats

In the first two hours of the voting, BJP is leading with 11 seats in its kitty. 

Kagwad BJP’s candidate Srimanth Patil leads by a margin of 18554 votes 

Ramesh Jarkiholi leads by a margin of 4394 votes against his own brother Lakhan Jarkiholi who is contesting on a Congress ticket