Striking a heavy blow to the JD-S in its heartland, the ruling Congress in Karnataka on Saturday wrested the Mandya and Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seats from it with impressive margins in the fiercely fought bypolls.
Multi-lingual actress Ramya on her electoral debut defeated C.S. Puttaraju of JD-S in Mandya, the nucleus of his party’s Vokkaliga vote base, by a margin of 67,611 votes, officials said.
In Bangalore Rural, it was a spectacular victory for Congress and heartbreaking defeat for JD-S as former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha Kumaraswamy lost by a huge margin of over 1.37 lakh votes to ruling party’s D.K. Suresh, brother of state party leader D.K. Shivakumar.
Mr Kumaraswamy, son of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, had held the Bangalore rural seat before he gave it up after winning the May Assembly polls and the Gowda family had invested all its prestige into the battle. He had won the seat by over 1.3 lakh votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. JD-S had struck an understanding with the BJP which did not field candidates in both the constituencies where it wields no significant electoral influence.