The Congress party celebrated its resounding victory in the Karnataka assembly elections on Saturday, as it secured an absolute majority of 136 seats in the 224-member house. The party president Mallikarjun Kharge held a key meeting with the senior leaders of the state unit at his residence.
Among those who attended the meeting were Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar and former chief minister Siddaramaiah. They congratulated Kharge for leading the party to a historic win in the state after he took over as the party president earlier this year.
The Congress party also thanked the people of Karnataka for reposing their faith in its policies and programmes. The party said it would work hard to fulfil the aspirations of the people and provide good governance in the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the distant second with 65 seats, while the Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) managed to win only 19 seats. The remaining four seats went to independents and other parties.
The Congress party maintained a comfortable lead from the start of the counting of votes on Saturday morning. The party also won several key constituencies, including Kanakapura, where DK Shivakumar defeated JDS candidate B Nagaraju by a huge margin of 1,22,392 votes.
Another prominent Congress leader, G Parameshwara, who was the former deputy chief minister, also retained his seat by defeating JDS candidate PR Sudhakar Lal by 14,347 votes.
The Congress party’s general secretary, Communications Jairam Ramesh said that the people of Karnataka had rejected the BJP and its divisive agenda. He said that the Congress party had focused on the issues of development and welfare of the state, while the BJP had made it a personal battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mallikarjun Kharge.
He said that the Karnataka election results were a clear indication of the mood of the nation and a sign of things to come in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
