With Congress votes in hand, Munirathna sweeps RR Nagar, doubles vote margin

BENGALURU: As expected, BJP candidate N Munirathna won against Congress candidate H Kusuma in the Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly constituency, where the bypoll result came out on Tuesday. It was a no-contest as Munirathna almost doubled his victory margin to 57,672 votes from his previous election, which he had won on a Congress ticket in 2018.

Munirathna, one of the turncoats who joined the BJP last year, seems to have retained his traditional Congress votes and also gained the BJP electoral base. The proof was the 1.25 lakh votes he garnered, making it a whopping 60 per cent of the total 2.09 lakh votes polled.

In 2018, while contesting as a Congress candidate, he got 1.08 lakh votes or 45 per cent of the 2.4 lakh total votes. The victory has only upped the supremacy of BJP in Bengaluru, increasing the number of party MLAs in the city to 15.

Munirathna was a BBMP councillor before he was given a Congress ticket to contest the Assembly poll in 2013. He has never looked back since then. This time, the BJP picked him only after the court cleared him of poll malpractice charges and allowed him to contest.

R Ashoka from the old guard, ST Somashekar and Byrathi Basavaraju from the new camp, former minister and BJP general secretary Aravind Limbavali and CM’s political secretary SR Vishwanath were part of the election team that ensured his victory. Munirathna, who is a contender for a cabinet berth, said, "I will not demand any particular portfolio. It is up to the chief minister and party leaders to decide."

Asked about KPCC president DK Shivakumar and his brother and MP DK Suresh, who campaigned hard against him during the campaigning, he said, "Politics ends when election results are out. We will work with them to develop RR Nagar."