Bengaluru: The ruling Congress in Karnataka emerged victorious in all three Channapatna, Shiggaon and Sandur Assembly segments, as per the results announced by the Election Commission after counting of votes on Saturday for the bypolls there.
The party held its stronghold of Sandur while also clinching the Shiggaon and Channapatna segments, which were earlier held by BJP and JD(S) respectively. Voting was held on these three seats on November 13.
The bypolls in Sandur, Shiggaon, and Channapatna were necessitated after their respective representatives—E Tukaram of Congress, former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of BJP, and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy of JD(S)—were elected to the Lok Sabha in May.
The elections saw a direct contest between the ruling Congress and BJP in Sandur and Shiggaon, while in Channapatna, JD(S), now part of the NDA, faced off against Congress.
Karnataka assembly bypolls result 2024
In Channapatna, which featured the most “high-profile” contest of the three, JD(S) candidate and actor-turned-politician Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of Kumaraswamy and grandson of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and Congress candidate CP Yogeeshwara.
The Congress candidate won by a margin of 25,413 votes. A five-time MLA from the constituency and a former minister, C P Yogeeshwara, who is also an actor-turned-politician, secured 1,12,642 votes. He joined the Congress after resigning from the BJP shortly before filing his nomination.
In Shiggaon too, Congress’ Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan, who had faced defeat against the former chief minister in the 2023 Assembly polls, won the seat by bagging a total of 1,00,756 votes with a vote margin of 13,448 votes against BJP’s Bharath Bommai, the son of Basavaraj Bommai.
In Sandur, Bellary MP Tukaram’s wife E Annapurna of Congress won with a vote margin of 9,649 votes against BJP’s Bangaru Hanumanthu. She polled a total of 93,616 votes.
With Nikhil Kumaraswamy and Bharath Bommai in the contest, the bypoll featured the third generation of the Gowda and Bommai political dynasties. Both their fathers and grandfathers have previously served as Chief Ministers of Karnataka.
