BJP candidate loses battle in elimination round

Mysore/Mysuru: Dr. D. Thimmaiah of Congress and C.N. Manjegowda of JD(S) emerged victorious in the election to the dual member Mysuru-Chamarajanagar seat from Local Authorities Constituency, the counting of which was taken up yesterday. Though Raghu R. Kautilya of BJP, who was hopeful of a victory, looked certain to win the second seat until evening as he continued to maintain second position, things took a complete turn around for Raghu during the counting process in the elimination round, when Manjegowda overtook him and emerged victorious.

While Congress candidate  Dr. Thimmaiah was declared winner  after he got 2,865 first preferential votes, the victory of JD(S) candidate  Manjegowda was announced late last night after a tight race with BJP candidate Raghu Kautilya.

Soon as the counting of votes began at Maharani’s College of Commerce and Management for Women on Valmiki road in Paduvarahalli, Dr.Thimmaiah established a comfortable lead in all rounds of counting and was declared elected after the counting of first preferential votes, bagging 2,865 votes, leaving two other main candidates — Raghu R. Kautilya and C.N. Manjegowda — to battle it out for the second seat.

After the first round of counting ended, Raghu Kautilya of the BJP came second with 1,919 votes while JD(S) candidate Manjegowda came third with 1,780 votes. At this stage, Manjegowda lagged behind Raghu by 139 votes.

The four other candidates who were in the fray — Vatal Nagaraj (3 votes) of Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha, independent candidates Gurulingaiah (3 votes), K.C. Basavarajaswamy (6 votes) and R. Manjunath (11 votes) — fared poorly. As Raghu came second, there was confidence in BJP circles at that point of time that the party candidate would  surely win the  second seat.

As Raghu Kautilya and Manjegowda failed to secure the quota of 2,195 votes in the count of first preferential votes, the counting of second preferential votes was taken up, during which Manjegowda fared marginally better. But still, the see-saw battle between the two continued even as the counting entered the elimination round, when Raghu needed 56 votes for a win and Manjegowda needed just 6 votes.

At this stage, Raghu demanded a recount of votes, which was however rejected by Deputy Commissioner Dr. Bagadi Gautham, also the Electoral Officer, who said that a recount cannot be taken up at this stage, except on technical grounds and also the  entire counting  process had taken place in the presence of all the candidates and their  poll agents.

Later C.N. Manjegowda was ultimately declared the winner as he got the required quota of votes after the counting of votes of one of the independent candidates (Gurulingaiah) ended in the elimination round.

After completion of the counting process, the Electoral Officer declared that the total value of votes secured by JD(S) candidate Manjegowda stood at 2,19,455, while that of BJP’s Raghu Kautilya was 2,14,425. Finally, the Electoral Officer Dr. Bagadi Gautham officially declared the result at about 11 pm, announcing that C.N. Manjegowda of the JD(S) was the winner of the second seat from the dual member Mysuru-Chamarajanagar seat. The official announcement of the result ended the dreams of Raghu Kautilya entering the Legislative Council. This was Raghu’s second straight defeat as he had lost the polls very narrowly to Sandesh Nagaraj of the JD(S) about six years ago.