BENGALURU, Feb 27: In a closely contested electoral battle in Karnataka, all three Congress candidates emerged victorious. The three candidates- Ajay Maken, Dr. Syed Naseer Hussain, and GC Chandrashekhar- secured wins with slender margins, receiving 47, 46, and 46 votes respectively.
Voting in the elections for the four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka began Tuesday at 9 am. The counting began at 5pm.
The Congress had 133 MLAs, the BJP has 66, JD (S) 19, while others account for four.
Of the four others, the Congress claimed the support of two independents and Darshan Puttanaiah from Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha, and was confident of winning three seats. Interestingly, the fourth one - G Janardhana Reddy (of Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha) met the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday.
The Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant following the retirement of four members -Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the BJP and G C Chandrashekhar, Syed Naseer Hussain and L Hanumanthaiah from the Congress.
The Congress, which was confident of winning three seats had fielded G C Chandrashekhar, Naseer Hussain and former union minister Ajay Maken.
The BJP had fielded Narayansa Bhandage as also JD(S) candidate D Kupendra Reddy as the NDA candidate which had made the election interesting.
Congress sources claimed that the party has the support of four others, reported PTI.
"Besides, we may get three votes from the rival camp," a top Congress source told PTI.
Fearing cross-voting, the Congress and the BJP-JD(S) alliance huddled their MLAs in a private resort on Monday.
They also conducted a workshop for the new members to inform them about the election process and how to cast their votes.
All parties have issued whips to the MLAs, who are the voters in Tuesdays poll, amid apprehensions of cross-voting.
According to official sources, each candidate has to get 45 votes to win, if there are only four candidates in the fray, but in the case of more candidates, the preference votes kick in. —PTI
