Karnataka Election Results: 12 of 19 BJP Candidates Won by Over 1 Lakh Votes, Former Speaker at the Top

In an election pitched as a contest between the charisma of Narendra Modi and the popularity of Congress’s guarantee schemes, 12 of the BJP’s 19 Karnataka candidates won by margins of 1-2 lakh votes, with one candidate crossing the 3-lakh mark as well.

Vishweshwar Kageri, former Speaker of Karnataka, came out trumps by winning against Congress candidate Anjali Nimbalkar by a margin of 3,37,428 votes.

Next comes JD-S leader HD Kumaraswamy, who won by a margin of 2,84,620 votes from his home turf. The JD-S had struck up an alliance with the BJP in attempts to keep the party’s prospects alive at a time when it has been facing an existential crisis and is plagued by sexual abuse charges against Prajwal Revanna.

Dr CN Manjunath, the giant-killer of Karnataka, defeated outgoing Congress MP DK Suresh in Bengaluru Rural by a margin of 2,68,094 votes. Manjunath is the son-in-law of JD-S patriarch and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda.

Bengaluru North MP-elect Shobha Karandlaje, the BJP’s first woman MP from Bengaluru, and firebrand youth leader Tejasvi Surya, who contested from Bengaluru South, won by margins of around 2,59,470 votes.

Capt. Brijesh Chowta, a new face fielded by the BJP, won Dakshina Kannada by a margin of 1,49,208 votes. Kota Srinivas, who contested from the Udupi Chikkamagalur Lok Sabha seat, won by 2,58,090 votes.

As part of the change that the BJP brought in, a fresh face was fielded in Mysore, replacing MP Prathap Simha. Scion of the Wadiyar royal family, Yaduveer KC Wadiyar, won the seat by a margin of 1,39,262 votes.

BY Raghavendra, the elder son of senior BJP leader and parliamentary board member BS Yediyurappa, won the Shimoga seat and became an MP for the fourth time by a margin of 2,43,715 votes.

Former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar, who shifted to the Congress after being denied a ticket during the Assembly polls from the Hubli-Dharwad assembly constituency and returned to the BJP in 10 months to contest from the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat, won by 1,65,651 votes.

A BJP insider told News18 that though they the party was confident of the win, the leaders were quite surprised by the margin. “Clearly the mandate this time was for Modi, and so people came out in large numbers in support of the BJP and to make Modi PM again,” said the leader who did not wish to be named.

Two former BJP ministers who lost the Assembly polls, V Somanna (Tumkur) and K. Sudhakar (Chikkaballapur), won their seats by margin of 1,75,594 votes and 1,62,099 votes, respectively.

While many of the wins in the BJP were big and, as a leader said, “out-of-the-ballpark” hits, there were seats like Bengaluru Central where three-time MP PC Mohan, who at first trailed behind Congress’ Mansoor Ali Khan, emerged victorious at the last minute by 32,707 votes.

Basavaraj Bommai, the former chief minister under whose leadership the BJP fought the 2023 Assembly polls and won just 66 seats, contested from the Haveri Lok Sabha seat and won by defeating his Congress opponent Anandaswamy Gaddadevaramath by a margin of 43,513 votes. Another former BJP minister and the leader whose name was announced on the last day of nomination filing, Govind M Karjol, defeated Congress’s BN Chandrappa by 48,121 votes in the Chitradurga seat.

For the Congress, which won nine seats in Karnataka, Bidar and Chamarajanagar were resounding victories. Sagar Khandre, the son of Congress minister Eshwar Khandre, won the Bidar seat by a margin of 1,28,875 votes, and Sunil Bose, son of another Congress state minister HC Mahadevappa, won the Chamarajanagara seat by a margin of 1,74,044 votes.

However, in a few other seats, the Congress scored very close wins, a couple of them by a slender margin of around 26,000 votes. Prabha Mallikarjun, who won on a Congress ticket from Davangere, defeated Gayatri Siddeshwar, the wife of outgoing MP GM Siddeshwar, by a narrow margin of just 26,094 votes.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son-in-law, Radhakrishna Doddamani, won the Gulbarga seat by defeating sitting MP Umesh Jadhav by 27,205 votes. In Hassan, Shreyas Patel defeated the incumbent and now-arrested MP Prajwal Revanna by 32,707 votes. In Koppal, Congress candidate Rajashekar Hitnal defeated BJP’s Basavaraj K. Sharanappa by a margin of 46,357 votes.