The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : JD(S) puts up a good show, wins five seats in Council polls

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Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

JD(S) puts up a good show, wins five seats in Council polls

Special Correspondent

BJP, Congress win 10 seats each
Mahima Patel loses in Shimoga

Bangalore: The Janata Dal (Secular) has put up a creditable performance in the elections to the Legislative Council for 25 seats from the local authorities constituencies, registering wins in five of the eight seats it contested in alliance with the Congress.

The governing Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have won 10 seats each, including the seats in Dakshina Kannada in which the Congress and the BJP won a seat each unopposed (Pratap Chandra Shetty and Srinivas Poojar) following an understanding between the two parties at the local level. Nineteen of the 25 members retiring from the Legislative Council are from the Congress, four BJP and one from the JD(S).

The BJP’s performance has not been up to the expectations of the leaders given the fact that the governing party normally registers a high victory margin in the indirect elections where the voters (elected representatives of panchayats and municipal bodies) normally vote in favour of the party.

In the last round of Council elections in 2003, the Congress, which contested 25 seats, won 19.

The BJP has lost the Chikmagalur seat to the Congress where A.V. Gayathri defeated M.S. Bhoje Gowda. Prominent winners in the elections are the former Ministers Veerakumar Patil (Belgaum), Nazir Ahmed (Kolar) and T. John (Kodagu), S.R. Patil (Bijapur) of the Congress, G.H. Tippareddy of the BJP (Chitradurga), film producer E. Krishnappa (Bangalore Rural) and Sandesh Nagaraj (Mysore) of the JD(S).

The family of Mr. Siddesh has represented the constituency several times: his mother, the late B.T. Rudramma, and brother, the late B.T. Channabasappa, had represented Chitradurga three times in the Council.

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