C.K. Ramamurthy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious in the Jayanagar seat in Karnataka by a narrow margin of 16 votes against his Congress rival Soumya Reddy on Saturday. The result was announced by officials at the counting center at SSMRV College in Jayanagar late on Saturday night.
Ramamurthy had demanded a recounting of votes due to the narrow margin, and tension prevailed at the RV Institute of Management in Jayanagar where the counting was taking place. Congress state president D.K. Shivakumar, state unit working president Ramalinga Reddy, who is also Sowmya Reddy’s father, and many other leaders staged a demonstration outside the polling booth, alleging the misuse of government machinery to favor Ramamurthy.
Election officials declared Ramamurthy as the winner with a thin margin of 16 votes. The Congress party has won 135 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, while the BJP has won 66 seats and the Janata Dal (Secular) has won 19 seats, according to the Election Commission website.
The Jayanagar assembly seat was earlier held by BJP’s B.N. Vijayakumar, who died of a heart attack during campaigning for the May 2018 assembly polls. The election in Jayanagar had been deferred after Vijayakumar’s death.
With the win in Jayanagar, the BJP has increased its tally in the Karnataka assembly and is now the principal opposition party. The Congress, which was in power in the state until 2018, now faces a difficult challenge in regaining lost ground ahead of the 2023 assembly polls.
The narrow margin of victory in Jayanagar highlights the need for political parties to remain vigilant during election campaigns and counting. It also underscores the importance of transparency and fairness in the electoral process to ensure that the will of the people is reflected accurately in the election results.
