Eight turncoats of 2019 ‘coup’, who helped BJP form govt in Karnataka, lose election

PTI, May 13, 2023, 7:50 PM IST

Bengaluru: Eight Congress turncoats who joined the BJP and helped it form the government in 2019, lost in the May 10 Karnataka Assembly elections, for which the results were announced on Saturday.

As many as 13 Congress and three JD(S) MLAs had resigned from the Karnataka Assembly in 2019 thus bringing down the 14-month-old coalition government of the Congress and the JD(S) led by H D Kumaraswamy.

Later, 16 of these MLAs, who were disqualified by the Speaker, joined the BJP and a majority them contested the 2019 Assembly bypolls, won the election and became Ministers in the B S Yediyurappa-led BJP government.

On Saturday when the election results were announced, Pratapgouda Patil lost to Basangouda Turvihal of Congress by 13,053 votes from Maski constituency and B C Patil (Hirekerur) by 15,020 votes to Ujaneshwar Basavannappa Banakar of the Congress.

Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura) lost to Congress candidate Pradeep Eshwar by 10,642 votes, M T B Nagaraj (Hoskote) lost to Congress candidate Sharath Kumar Bachegowda by 5,150 votes while Shrimant Patil (Kagwad) was defeated by Congress’ Balaramgouda Alagouda Kage by 8,827 votes.

Mahesh Kumathalli (Athani) was defeated by Laxman Savadi, who had quit BJP and joined the Congress, by 76,122 seats, K C Narayana Gowda (K R Pet) and R Shankar (Ranibennur) lost the election as a distant third.

BJP fielded Siddarth Singh Thakur in place of his Minister father Anand Singh, a turncoat, from Vijayanagara constituency, who lost to H R Gaviyappa by 33,723 votes. Roshan Baig and A H Vishwanath did not contest in this election.

However, Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapur), S T Somashekar (Yeshwanthpur), Byrati Basavaraj (K R Puram), N Munirathna (R R Nagar), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak) and K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout) won the election.

The Congress-JD(S) alliance government led by H D Kumaraswamy collapsed in 14 months, triggered by the resignation of 17 ruling coalition MLAs, including Jarkiholi.