Cross voting hurts BJP-JD(S) combine 

Bengaluru: A fortnight after taking over as the Chief Minister of the State, D.K. Shivakumar cleared the first ‘litmus test’ with flying colours on Thursday as he steered all the five Congress candidates to victory in the biennial Legislative Council polls from the MLAs quota. 

With this win, the ruling Congress enjoys a majority in the Upper house with 39 MLCs in the 75-member house, which gives the party fresh oxygen now in the Legislative Council. 

While the Congress won five seats, the BJP won two seats as expected. The JD(S), which entered the fray in a bid to deny the Congress its fifth seat, was in for a shock as the party candidate bites the dust. 

The victorious Congress candidates are: KPCC President B.K. Hariprasad, Thippannappa Kamaknoor, P.V. Mohan, B.S. Shivanna (Malavalli Shivanna) and Vinay Karthik, while the successful BJP candidates are: Raghu R. Kautilya and Lingaraj Patil.  

Newly elected BJP MLCs Raghu R. Kautilya and Lingaraj Patil being congratulated by State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra, Opposition Leader in the Assembly R. Ashok, Opposition Leader in the Legislative Council Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, MLA C.C. Patil, former Kolar MP Muniswamy and other BJP leaders at Vidhana Soudha yesterday.

The JD(S) candidate Govindaraj fared poorly, securing just 14 votes.  

However, the biggest statement of the day came from the performance of CM’s close aide Vinay Karthik, who secured the highest number of votes at 32, outpolling his four other senior party functionaries B.K. Hariprasad, B.S. Shivanna, Thippannappa Kamaknoor (30 votes each) and P.V. Mohan (29 votes). 

Raghu Kautilya of the BJP bagged 29 votes while the party’s other candidate Lingaraj Patil got 27 votes and  Govindaraj of the JD(S), which has 18 members in the Assembly, could manage just 14 votes.  

Cross voting 

The speculation over cross voting came true with Congress easily winning all the five seats that it had contested, gathering 11 votes through cross voting from the NDA partners in the State-BJP and JD(S).  

While the BJP lost at least three votes in cross voting, leaving the party red-faced, the JD(S) suffered an embarrassing defeat losing at least four votes.