Congress Smells Victory In Karnataka, Goes Past 2013 Mandate

Opposition Congress on Saturday seemed to be on course to breach rival BJP's lone southern citadel Karnataka, racing ahead the magic 113 figure to form a government on its own.

The opposition party marched ahead establishing a lead in 118 constituencies, while the BJP was leading in 75 segments, the latest Election Commission (EC) trends of counting of votes polled in the Karnataka Assembly elections showed. The former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal is leading in 24 segments, and others in 5 seats.

It must be noted that in the 2013 Karnataka state assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party, winning 122 out of 224 seats in the assembly. The mandate for the Congress party in these elections was to form the government in Karnataka and to govern the state for the next five years.

The party's manifesto for the 2013 Karnataka elections included promises such as the creation of one crore jobs (10 million), the implementation of the Right to Education Act, the provision of free laptops to students, the distribution of free milk to children in government schools, the construction of one lakh (100,000) houses for the poor, and the establishment of a price stabilization fund for farmers, among other things.

After the elections, the Congress party formed the government in Karnataka, with Siddaramaiah as the Chief Minister. The party remained in power in the state until the 2018 Karnataka assembly elections, where it was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

2013 election results:

BJP - 40
Congress - 122
JD(S) - 40
Others - 22