Siddaramaiah wins Chamundeshwari bypolls

Bangalore, Dec 7: 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.

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 today.

The byelection was necessitated by Mr Siddaramaiah resigning 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 poll-scarred veteran Siddaramaiah and an electoral novice Shivabasappa.

The byelection witnessed a high-voltage campaign by the Congress and the JD(S)-BJP combine. However, the election passed off peacefully, thanks to the elaborate arrangements made by the Election Commission. An estimated 66.31 percentage of the 3.68 lakh electorate had exercised their franchise.

UNI