Around 10 candidates who have made it to the 15th Legislative Assembly went through some tense moments before the results were declared on Saturday. For, these candidates managed to win the polls by a small margin against their competitors.
Among the candidates who lost by less than 2,000 votes, as many as seven are from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) itself.
Even though the BJP has emerged as the single largest party in Assembly, it has fallen short of reaching the magic number of 111 to form the government.
One might wonder if the narrative of the political scenario itself would have been different had these seven BJP candidates won the elections.
Basanagowda Turvihal of the BJP, who contested from Maski in Raichur district, lost by a just 213 votes to his Congress rival Pratapgouda Patil.
Another interesting case is that of Ujaneshwara Banakar of the BJP from Hirekerur constituency in Haveri district. He lost to actor-politician B C Patil of the Congress by 555 votes. Similarly, former minister D N Jeevaraj lost from the BJP stronghold of Sringeri constituency in Chikkamagaluru district. He lost to his Congress opponent T D Rajegowda by 1,989 votes. The BJP was confident of winning this seat which Jeevaraj had represented since 2004.
Even BJP’s star campaigner B Sriramulu lost his Badami seat in Bagalkot district to the outgoing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah by a slender margin. The counting of votes in this constituency gathered attention across the state after Siddaramaiah was trailing badly against JD(S) leader G T Devegowda in Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru.
K M Thimmarayappa of the JD(S) gave a tough fight in Pavagada constituency in Tumakuru district against former minister Venkataramanappa of the Congress. But ended up losing by a thin margin.
In the 2004 Assembly polls, A R Krishnamurthy of the JD(U) had lost against R Dhruvanarayan of the Congress by just one vote in the now-defunct Santhemarahalli constituency in Chamarajanagar district.