C. Narayanaswamy wins Congress primary in Bangalore

 Congress leader C. Narayanaswamy Thursday sealed his candidature for the Lok Sabha polls from the Bangalore North constituency by winning the party primary.

"Narayanaswamy secured 189 of the 371 votes polled in the primary held at a resort in the city. He will be our candidate for the Bangalore North parliamentary constituency," party returning officer Nitin Kumbalkar told IANS.

Karnataka will go to the polls April 17.

Of the 478 registered voters, only 359 could vote, as the remaining were either late or did not turn up when the polling process began at 11 a.m.

"Narayanaswamy won the contest on second preferential votes, as none of the four candidates in the fray could secure more than 50 percent of the votes polled in the first preference," Kumbalkar said.

Of the three candidates, G.C. Chandrashekar got 123 votes, Rajeev Gowda got 69 and N.L. Narendra Babu got 40, while 24 votes were declared invalid.

First preference votes carried 100 points and second preference 50 points.

The 65-year-old Narayanaswamy represented Bangalore North from 1996 to 1998 as the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) member.

He joined the Congress Aug 15, 2013, after resigning from the JD-S to protest its joining hands with the BJP for the twin parliamentary by-elections in Bangalore Rural and Mandya constituencies.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has selected former chief minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda as its candidate for the Bangalore North seat, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has named former National Law School of India registrar Babu Mathew as its contestant.

The JD-S is yet to announce its candidate for the constituency.