Siddaramaiah scrapes through in Chamundeswari

Mysore, Dec 7 (UNI) Congress candidate and former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today retained the prestigious Chamundeswari assembly seat, defeating his nearest Janata Dal (Secular) rival Shivabasappa by a wafer thin margin of 257 votes.

In the keenly-contested bypoll, held on December four, Mr Siddaramaiah polled 1,15,512 votes against his BJP-backed JD(S) rival Shivabasappa, who got 1,15,255 votes.

Mr Siddaramaiah was declared elected after 27 rounds of counting at the Maharani's Arts College here today.

The bypoll was necessitated following Mr Siddaramaiah's esignation from the seat, won on a JD(S) ticket, prior to joining the Congress.

Though 14 candidates were in the fray, including JD(U) candidate A S Guruswamy and Samajwadi Party nominee B Karunakaran, it was virtually a direct fight between the veteran Siddaramaiah and an electoral novice, Shivabasappa.

The by-election witnessed a high-voltage campaign by the Congress and the ruling JD(S)-BJP combine.

An estimated 66.31 percentage of the 3.68 lakh electorate had exercised its franchise in the bypoll to this Karnataka assembly seat.

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