Siddaramaiah manages to retain Chamundeswari with slender margin

Mysore, Dec 7 (UNI) In a keenly contested electoral battle, Congress candidate and former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah won the prestigious Chamundeswari Assembly constituency, defeating his nearest rival Mr Shivabasappa of the ruling Janata Dal (Secular) by a wafer thin margin of 257 votes.

While Mr Siddaramaiah polled 1,15,512 votes, his BJP-backed JD(S) rival Shivabasappa got 1,15,255 votes. The remaining 12 candidates in the fray, including JD(U) candidate A S Guruswamy and Samajwadi Party nominee B Karunakaran, lost their deposit.

Mr Siddaramaiah was declared elected in the bypoll, held on December four, after 27 rounds of counting at the Maharani's Arts College here today. It was a perfect see-saw battle as Mr Siddaramaiah and Mr Shivabasappa enjoyed the lead alternatively after each round of counting.

As the Congress scraped through with a slender margin, some of the JD(S) leaders demanded a recount. However, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Ramaseshan dismissed the pleas, stating that there was no question of recounting of votes after the result was officially announced.

The bypoll outcome had come as a major embarrassment to the JD(S)-BJP coalition Government as almost the entire Government machinery, led by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, had camped in the constituency and undertaken a no-holds-barred campaign for their consensus candidate.

The byelection was necessitated by Mr Siddaramaiah resigning the seat, won on a JD(S) ticket, prior to joining the Congress.

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