Congress wins Karnataka civic polls, BJP says results not as expected

The results of most of the seats in the Karnataka civic polls have been declared and Congress has emerged as the single largest party. While the grand old party termed it as a victory of the development policies of the JDS-Congress government in the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) conceded defeat saying the results were below the expectation of the party.

The state election commission declared the results of 2628 seats till last report came in, of which the Congress bagged 966 seats while the BJP managed to win 910 seats. The Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) won 373 seats.

Reacting to the victory of the JDS-Congress combine, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said that the pattern of city voters choosing the BJP seemed to have changed. Speaking to mediapersons, the JDS leader said, “City voters normally vote for BJP, but with the outcome of this result, now even city voters have shown full support for the coalition govt led by Congress and JDS.”

Veteran JDS leader and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda also expressed his happiness over the result of the local body polls, saying, “We have succeeded. JDS and Congress will go together to keep BJP at a distance.”

Karnataka BJP chief and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa conceded defeat on behalf of the party. He said that the results were not as per the expectations of the BJP, but added that the same could not be viewed as the mood of the people ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Counting of votes were held on Monday for elections for three city corporations, 29 city municipal councils, 52 town municipal councils and 20 Town Panchayats.

Both the Congress and the JDS contested the local bodies polls separately despite being partners in the state government. They, however, already declared that they would tie up post-election in urban bodies.