Karnataka elections 2023: 7 out of 13 Congress, JD(S) turncoats trailing

17 MLAs had moved away from the Congress-JD(S) combine in 2019 to help the BJP come back to power. 13 of those contested these elections

Out of the 13 MLAs who defected from the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019, seven were trailing in the Karnataka Assembly Election results, according to the early trends from the Election Commission of India at 12:45 pm. In all, 17 MLAs had moved away from the Congress-JD(S) combine in 2019 to help the BJP come back to power.

Mahesh Kumathalli from the Athani seat was trailing far behind Laxman Savadi, the former deputy chief minister in the BJP government, who had switched to the Congress ahead of the polls after the saffron party denied him a ticket.

Meanwhile, it was a close race between the incumbent Shrimant Balasaheb Patil, from BJP, and Congress’ Raju Kage in the Kagwad seat. Patil, a former Congressman, was trailing behind Kage. Both Patil and Kage switched sides after the 2019 episode.

The others trailing included BJP’s Pratapgouda Patil from Maski, a seat reserved for candidates from the Schedule Tribes, who was behind the Congress’ Basan Gouda Turvihal. Patil had won this seat in the 2013 and 2018 Assembly elections, after which he defected to the BJP.

BC Patil was trailing behind Congress’ Ujaneshwar Basavannappa Banakar in the Hirekerur seat. Interestingly, Banakar was a loyalist of the former chief minister and BJP leader BS Yediyurappa. He had switched with Yediyurappa to the Karnataka Janata Paksha when the latter had quit the BJP in 2013.

Even the Minister of Medical Education and Health, Dr K Sudhakar, was trailing by around 7 per cent behind Pradeep Eshwar—the Congress candidate—from the Chikkaballapur seat. Sudhakar was in the Congress before 2019.

N Nagaraju (MTB), the millionaire agriculturist and a Congress turncoat from Hosakote, was trailing behind Congress’ Sharath Kumar Bachegowda by around 9 per cent.

Among the JD(S) MLAs who had switched were KC Narayanagowda and K Gopalaiah. While Gopalaiah was leading from the Mahalakshmi Layout constituency by a huge margin of 36,832 votes, Narayanagowda was far behind the Congress’ Krishnarajpet candidate—BL Devaraja.

Interestingly, B Anand Singh, former tourism minister who defected from Congress, decided against contesting, and his son Siddharth Singh was fielded in his stead from the Vijayanagara seat. However, the latter was trailing behind the Congress candidate.