New Delhi: The Congress won 137 of Karnataka’s 224 seats, defeating the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which could manage 65 constituencies in its sole southern bastion.
The Janata Dal (Secular), a former ally of the Congress, won 19 seats.
The Congress victory – a much-needed shot in the arm as its national presence had waned considerably over the past decade – was a record both in terms of seats and vote share.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge told the media this evening that the victory has ensured a “BJP-mukt South India” – a jibe at the outgoing party’s oft-repeated “Congress-mukt Bharat”.
The Congress ran away with the numbers as the morning count began, soon crossing the halfway mark of 113.
After the emphatic victory, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that his party had fought the election for the poor.
Gandhi said, “We were with the poor, we fought for their cause.” He said that leaders do not fight with hatred and abuses but with love.
Gandhi said Karnataka showed that it likes love. “The market for hate in Karnataka has been closed. Mohabbat ki dukaan khuli hain (The market of hate has shut in Karnataka. Shops of love have opened),” the Congress leader told the media in New Delhi.
The Karnataka election was the first major electoral battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi after he was convicted of defamation that resulted in his expulsion from the Lok Sabha in March.
Modi, who led a high-profile election campaign, tweeted his congratulations to the Congress on Saturday evening, and sent his best wishes to the party for “fulfilling the aspirations of the people”.
He also thanked the people who supported the BJP in the Karnataka elections, saying: “I appreciate the hard work of BJP workers. We look forward to serving Karnataka with even greater enthusiasm in the times to come.
Congress’s Siddaramaiah, who has made his aspirations clear to become the next chief minister, said the prime minister visited the state 20 times in the run-up to the Karnataka elections – the most by any PM before the polls.
Accepting defeat, BJP’s outgoing chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said the party would look back, regroup and come back stronger for the Lok Sabha polls next year.
In the 2018 assembly elections, the BJP emerged as the single largest party with 104 seats (36 percent of the vote), followed by the Congress with 78 (38 percent of the vote) and the Janata Dal (Secular) with 37 seats (18 percent of the vote). Was. voting percentage).
It may be recalled that the Congress-JD(S) coalition formed the government in 2018, but was toppled by the BJP after 14 months due to defections.