Former Karnataka Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao retained his Gandhi Nagar Assembly constiuency seat is a closely battle with the Bharatiya Janata Party rival Sapthagiri Gowda. Rao emerged victorious by a slim margin of just 105 votes, the data showed as the counting of polled votes for the Karnataka Assembly election 2023 is underway on Saturday. (Track LIVE Karnataka election result updates here.)
The sitting MLA from Gandhi Nagar constituency also serves as the All India Congress Committee in-charge of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Goa. The latest poll trends showed that Rao and Gowda were the main contenders among the 15 candidates who fought election from the seat.
Ahead of counting, Rao had exuded confidence in the party’s victory. “…will win by a very big margin. We will get over 140 seats,” he had said Wednesday after the conclusion of voting process.
In a major win for the Congress, the party led by Mallikarjun Kharge emerged victorious in 10 seats and held a commanding lead in an additional 126 constituencies, the latest trends showed. The grand old party is set to form the next government in Karnataka.
The party’s victory means a setback for the BJP in the south, where it was in power only in Karnataka. Apart from these two, Janata Dal (Secular) fought as the third major party in the race. The Congress and the JDS had formed a post-poll alliance in 2018 after the BJP fell short of the majority mark.
Meanwhile, as the counting trend emerged in favour of the Congress, the outgoing chief minister Basavaraj Bommai acknowledged that the BJP could not make a mark this time. “We have not been able to make the mark, in spite of a lot of effort put in by everyone, including the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and the workers of the party,” he said.
On the other hand, Congress president Kharge expressed gratitude to the people of Karnataka and promised to honour the public’s trust in the party. “I thank the people of Karnataka for giving a huge mandate to Congress. We will uphold their belief in us. We will implement all the welfare schemes we have announced in our manifesto. I thank Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi who campaigned even when she wasn’t well”, he said.
