Minister for Energy in the outgoing BJP government V. Sunil Kumar pulled out the victory with great difficulty even as 11 of his Cabinet colleagues suffered a massive drubbing in the elections to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the results of which were declared on Saturday, May 13.
Mr. Kumar was maintaining a thin margin of about 2,000 votes since the beginning of the counting against Muniyalu Uday Kumar Shetty of the Congress and improved the victory margin to 4,602 votes by polling 77,028 votes. Mr. Shetty polled 72,426 votes.
The anti-incumbency on account of reported arrogant behaviour, not mingling with people and alleged corruption was so strong that his victory margin not only saw decline from the 2018 elections (42,566), but also the total votes polled decreased from 91,245 in 2018 against the first-time contender in the Assembly polls, Mr. Shetty.
In the 2018 elections, his opponent was late H. Gopala Bhandary of the Congress, a veteran politician known for his humble and pro-common man nature. Yet, Mr. Kumar defeated the latter with a comfortable margin. Though Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditya Nath had campaigned for Mr. Kumar, it did not appear to have helped him much this time.
Mr. Shetty, new to the electoral politics, was known to people as a civil contractor and a philanthropist through his Social Service Trust. Though the base of the Congress had considerably eroded in the constituency after the demise of Mr. Bhandary, Mr. Shetty’s humane approach reportedly brought him closer to people.
Sri Rama Sene’s Pramod Mutalik who entered the fray as an Independent candidate to defeat Mr. Kumar polled 4,508 votes denting to some extent the latter’s victory margin. Mr. Mutalik had levelled allegations of corruption against the BJP candidate who had come to power through Hindutva ideology.
