Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023: Rebels spoil party in several segments

In Chickpet, Congress’ rebel Yousuf Sharif aka KGF Babu, who contested as an independent, spoiled the party’s official nominee R V Devaraj’s chances

At least a dozen rebel candidates from both the national parties played spoilsports in the assembly election by delivering an easy victory to the opponents.

There were at least 32 BJP and Congress rebels were in the fray.

In Chickpet, Congress’ rebel Yousuf Sharif aka KGF Babu, who contested as an independent, spoiled the party’s official nominee R V Devaraj’s chances. Babu polled 20,931 votes. Devaraj got 45,186 votes. The winner - BJP’s Uday Garudachar - got 57,299 votes.

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The situation was similar in Channagiri where BJP rebel Madal Mallikarjun gained more votes than the candidate fielded by BJP. The BJP candidate H S Shivakumar got 21,467 votes whereas Madal managed to get 61,828 votes. However, the winning Congress candidate Basavaraju Shivaganga received 78,263 votes.

Even in the Arkalgud constituency, 74,643 votes were for the winner of JD(S) A Manju. Interestingly, Congress candidate Sridhar Gowda was voted 35,947. Here the Congress rebel M T Krishne Gowda secured 55,038 votes which belonged to Congress.

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Defeated by 105 votes

Another such constituency where the rebel candidate was the reason for the defeat of the BJP candidate is Gandhi Nagar in Bengaluru. Krishnaiah Shetty, who contested as a BJP rebel, got 6,871 votes and the BJP’s A T Sapthagiri Gowda lost by 105 votes against Congress’ Dinesh Gundurao. Dinesh got 54,118 votes whereas Gowda received 54,013 votes.

JD(S) has lost its seat in the Mandya constituency because of the rebellion. Vijayananda JD(S) rebel contested independently and secured 15,334 votes where the winning margin was 2019 votes between JD(S) Ramachandra and Ravi Kumar Gowda of Congress. Ravi Kumar Gowda won by securing 61,411 votes.

In a surprise, Latha Mallikarjun, a Congress rebel from Harapanahalli, won by securing 70,194 votes while the Congress candidate Kotreshi got 44,988 votes against the BJP’s Karunakara Reddy who bagged 56,394 votes.