Going by basic arithmetic of the actual assembly poll result, the Congress-JD(S) alliance would have bagged 151 seats while the BJP would have ended up with 69 seats.
A report by The Times of India suggests that had the Congress and the JD(S) fought the Karnataka assembly election together, the alliance would have won 151 seats.
The number was arrived at using basic arithmetic and the actual results of the assembly poll. The math also suggested that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have ended up with 69 seats in such a scenario.
Another report by The Indian Express suggests that a pooling of the votes secured by Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), along with those of Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), would have reduced BJP's final tally to 68 seats in Karnataka assembly election.
The Congress and JD(S)' joint tally, going purely by vote count, would have been 156 seats. BSP was in an alliance only with the JD(S).
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Impact on 2019 Lok Sabha polls
An alliance between the Congress and the JD(S) could help the two parties beat the BJP in Karnataka in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, if voters do not change their party preferences, TOI reported.
The BJP would be reduced to 6-7 Lok Sabha seats, while the Congress-JD(S) would bag 17 seats in the state in 2019, going by how votes were distributed among the three parties in the recently-concluded assembly election.
In this case, the saffron party appears to not be winning a single Lok Sabha seat in the Hyderabad Karnataka and Old Mysuru regions.
However, while the JD(S) is unlikely to cover a lot of ground with its current vote share during the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress would win the Chikkodi, Raichur, Uttara Kannada, Davengere, Shimoga and Chitradurga parliamentary seats if JD(S)' votes were to be added to its tally.
Of the total 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, the BJP had bagged 17 in 2014. The Congress had finished second with 9 seats, while JD(S) had settled for just two. BJP’s vote share was around 43.00 percent, while Congress' was 40.80 percent.