Bengaluru: Within the simply concluded Karnataka meeting elections, which noticed the Congress safe a decisive 135 of 224 seats, 4 candidates stood out with their efficiency — two for being sole winners from their a lot smaller events, and two for being the one Independents to win this yr.
Aside from the three main gamers, the Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S), the Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha (KRPP), and the Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha (SKP) noticed one every of their candidates win — Gali Janardhana Reddy and Darshan Puttannaiah, respectively.
Reddy — a part of the Reddy brother trio identified for his or her alleged involvement within the Bellari mining business — launched the KRPP in December final yr after a fallout with the BJP. The previous minister defeated Congress candidate Iqbal Ansari in Gangavathi. The KRPP had fielded 37 candidates and Reddy was the one victor. His spouse, Aruna Lakshmi, misplaced from Bellari metropolis.
SKP’s Darshan Puttannaiah defeated JD(S) candidate and former Mandya MP C.S. Puttaraju in Melukote. The 45-year previous techie-turned-politician and son of the distinguished farmer chief the late Ok.S. Puttanaiah, Darshan had unsuccessfully contested the 2018 meeting polls additionally from the identical seat.
Among the many profitable Independents is former Congress member Ok.H. Puttaswamy Gowda, who gained with an enormous margin of 37,286 votes from the Gauribidanur seat, defeating his nearest rival, Congress’s N.H. Shivashankara Reddy.
The opposite profitable Impartial candidate can be a former Congress chief. Former KPCC district basic secretary, Latha Mallikarjun, gained from the Harapanahalli constituency by 13,845 votes, defeating BJP’s G. Karunakara Reddy.
She is the daughter of former deputy chief minister M.P. Prakash and sister of former Harapanahalli MLA M.P. Ravindra. Prakash was the deputy CM in the course of the Congress-JD(S) coalition authorities in 2005-06.
Amongst Latha’s sisters, M.P. Veena joined the Congress whereas M.P. Suma joined the BJP earlier this month.
Latha and Veena had been each aspirants for a Congress ticket from Harapanahalli however determined to depart the celebration when that didn’t work out, based on media stories.
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KRPP and SKP
As talked about earlier, G. Janardhana Reddy comes from the influential Reddy household. In the course of the 2004-2006 mining growth, the Reddy brothers allegedly amassed vital wealth by exporting iron ore. Nonetheless, in 2011, their mining operations got here beneath investigation by the Karnataka Lokayukta and later by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged unlawful mining and export of iron ore.
Reddy was first sidelined within the BJP however was dropped at the fore once more by senior chief and Dwelling Minister Amit Shah on the behest of Yediyurappa. He was arrested in 2015 over unlawful mining costs and later in 2018 for his alleged hyperlinks to a Rs 600-crore ponzi scheme, stated media stories.
In the meantime, the SKP is a political celebration linked to the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha farmers’ affiliation. It was based by Dalit author Devanur Mahadeva in 2005 and merged with Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj India in 2017, but it surely fought beneath its personal identify this time.
It contested from a number of constituencies together with Mandya, Melukote, Virajpet, Chitradurga, and Belthangady in alliance with the Congress. Most of those areas have a majority of farmers from the Vokkaliga group.
The SKP claims to have greater than 20 lakh registered members and focuses on points associated to the area.
Within the 2018 meeting elections, Darshan Puttanaiah had contested the elections on a Swaraj India ticket and the Congress didn’t subject any candidate towards him. This time, too, the Congress fielded candidates on 223 seats, leaving one for ally SKP.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)