The ruling BJP wrested both Sira and Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly constituencies that went into bypolls on November 3 as its candidates led their nearest rivals at the end of counting on Tuesday.
Both Congress and Janata Dal Secular, which held the R.R. Nagar and Sira, respectively, before the bypolls, had to face defeat.
The party's candidate in Sira Dr. B.M. Rajesh Gowda, who is making his electoral debut, polled 74,522 votes at the end of 24 rounds of counting and was ahead of six time legislator and Congress candidate T.B. Jayachandra who ended up polling 61,573 votes. The Janata Dal Secular nominee Ammajamma was at a distant third polling 35,982 votes. Incidentally, Mr. Jayachandra had lost to JD-S candidate late B Satyanarayana by a margin of about 10,200 votes in 2018.
While Dr Gowda led the fray from the beginning of the counting, he had maintained a slender margin over Mr. Jayachandra in the earlier rounds of counting with margins less than 2,000 votes. However, by mid way he extended his lead to finally finish with a margin of nearly 13,000 votes. Ms. Ammajamma, wife of the deceased legislator B Satyanarayana and also a first time poll entrant, ended up in third place.
In RR Nagar, the BJP candidate Muniratna, whose resignation from Congress and the assembly seat had necessitated the bye poll, won, defeating the Congress nominee H Kusuma, who was making her electoral debut. He had led from the beginning with a huge margin. At the end of 25th round of counting Mr. Muniratna had polled 1,25,734 as against 67,798 votes polled by Ms. Kusuma. The JD S nominee V Krishnamurthy was a distant third with 10,251 votes.
Though the poll results has no bearing on the stability of BJP government, it had been fought on the prestige of individual leaders. While it was the first polls where Vokkaliga are in sizeable nunbers for D.K. Shivakumar after he took over as KPCC President, for JD-S, which has seen a series of electoral set backs after 2018 elections, retaining of Sira was important for the party to maintain it's hold in the Old Mysuru region where it has influence. For BJP though the results had no consequences on the Government. It fought the polls to make inroads into Vokkaliga heartland.
In the current scenario when the saffron party is seen as deriving strength from Lingayat support, this is the second victory for the party in Vokkaliga belt after it won K.R. Pete in Mandya in bye polls held last December.