Karnataka Rajya Sabha: 3 Seats For BJP, 1 For Congress, None For Deve Gowda’s JDS

Bengaluru:

HD Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (Secular), whose home base is Karnataka, did not win a single seat in the Rajya Sabha election from the state today. BJP’s Nirmala Sitharaman, Jaggesh and Lehar Singh Siroya took three out of the four seats, while the Congress’s Jairam Ramesh won the only remaining seat. BJP National General Secretary CT Ravi confirmed his party won the three seats, while one went to the Congress.

Ms Sitharaman and Mr Ramesh polled 46 votes, Jaggesh got 44 and Mr Siroya 33, Mr Ravi said.

A candidate needs the support of 45 MLAs to win, and based on their strength in the assembly, the BJP would have won two seats and the Congress one.

However, the maximum votes are counted in the second-preference voting, during which cross-voting by MLAs from other parties took the third BJP candidate past the finish line.

“We were already winning two seats in Karnataka easily. But we got one more seat as a bonus. I’d like to thank everyone for this,” Mr Ravi told reporters this evening.

“There are people in other parties who like the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and have faith in him. They have helped us. I’d like to thank them too,” Mr Ravi said, adding he doesn’t know who all voted for the third BJP candidate. “Mathematics works in a democracy, and we have won the numbers game,” he said.

Despite not having an adequate number of votes to win the fourth seat from the state assembly, all the big three political parties in the state – BJP, Congress and JDS – had fielded candidates for the seat, forcing an election.