The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the single largest party in Karnataka assembly polls where the counting of votes was conducted on Tuesday. The saffron party, however, fell short of a majority in the 224-member Assembly where the Congress has backed third-placed rival JD(S) to stake claim to form the government.
A party has to secure minimum 112 seats for a simple majority in the Assembly. Elections were held for 222 of 224 seats on May 12 as polling for the remaining two will be held later. While polling for Raja Rajeshwari Nagar seat in Bengaluru was deferred on account of alleged electoral malpractices, following the recovery of over 9,000 voter ID cards, the election in Jayanagar seat was postponed following the death of BJP candidate BN Vijayakumar.
As the Election Commission announced the final tally of seats after midnight, the BJP settled to 104 and the Congress at 78. The JD(S) secured 37 seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party got one seat each. One seat went to an independent candidate.
In terms of vote share, the Congress was placed at the top with 38.0%. The BJP, which has 26 more seats than the Congress, settled at 36.2% votes. The HD Deve Gowda led JD(S) was a choice of 18.3% voters. Mayawati's BSP, which contested on 18 seats in alliance with the JD(S), secured 0.3% of votes as it won one seat.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was handed a shock loss as he lost by a huge margin of 36,042 votes in his traditional constituency of Chamundeshwari in Mysuru to JDS' GT Deve Gowda. He, however, managed to scrape through in Badami in north Karnataka, where he won by a slender margin of 1,696 votes after a see-saw battle against BJP's B Sriramulu.
At least 10 ministers in his government lost their respective battles in an anti-incumbency wave.
For the BJP, most of the high profile candidates sailed through with chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa winning the Shikaripura seat by a margin of over 35,000 votes. B Sriramulu, a close associate of the mining baron Reddy brothers, comfortably won in Molkalmuru.
Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar won Hubli-Dharwad Central seat by 21,000 votes.
JD(S) state Chief HD Kumaraswamy, who will become the Chief Minister if his party's alliance with the Congress succeeds in forming the government, won convincingly in both Channapatna and Ramanagara.
72.13% of Karnataka's voters exercised their franchise in the May 12 assembly polls. This was the highest voter percentage since the 1952 assembly polls. Karnataka has an electorate of over 4.97 crore.
The final result came as a jolt to the BJP as it initially appeared to return to power after a five-year hiatus with a resounding majority. But at the end of counting of votes, it came tantalisingly close to the halfway mark.
However, this did not deter Yeddyurappa to stake claim to the government. Yeddyurappa met the Governor and staked claim to form the government, even as the Congress-JD(S) combine crossed the majority mark and jointly met Governor Vajubhai Vala. Along with one BSP MLA, the post-poll alliance has 116 seats.
In the evening, Congress Leaders Siddaramaiah, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjuna Kharge along with JD(S) state Chief HD Kumaraswamy met Vala and submitted a letter seeking an opportunity to form the government.
Soon after Congress declared its support to JD(S), Kumaraswamy wrote to the governor informing him that he had accepted the offer to be the chief minister. KPCC chief G Parameshwara said modalities related to government formation would be discussed later.
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