Four former chief ministers have won the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka while two others tasted defeat.
Union minister M Veerappa Moily, B S Yeddyurappa, D V Sadananda Gowda and former Prime Minister and JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda, who were the main contenders in their constituencies, emerged victorious.
JDS' H D Kumaraswamy lost Chikkaballapur seat and Congress candidate N Dharam Singh suffered defeat in Bidar.
Sadananda Gowda, a former MP from Udupi-Chikkamagalur earlier, trounced C Narayanaswamy of Congress by 2,29,764 votes in Bangalore North, while JDS chief retained Hassan seat defeating A Manju of Congress by 1,00,462 votes.
BJP strongman Yeddyurappa defeated Manjunath Bhandary of Congress by 3,63,305 votes in his home district Shimoga. He was also pitted against JDS' Geetha Shivaraj Kumar, daughter of former Chief Minister S Bangarappa and wife of leading Kannada actor Shivarajkumar.
This is the second time Yeddyurappa is seeking entry to Parliament after having failed in his first attempt earlier. Shimoga was represented in the current Lok Sabha by his son B Y Raghavendra.
Moily, who was seeking re-election, defeated BJP's B N Bache Gowda in Chikkballapur by 9,520 votes. He had served as Karnataka Chief Minister from 1992 to 1994.
Kumaraswamy, who had headed the JDS-BJP coalition government in Karnataka for a little over 20 months till October 2007 and also a former Lok Sabha member, finished third behind Moily and Bache Gowda, garnering 34,6339 votes.
Deve Gowda, a five-time MP, defeated A Manju of Congress by 1,00,462 votes in Hassan, which is a strong JDS bastion, dominated by the Vokkaliga community to which he belongs.
Dharam Singh, a sitting MP, who had headed a Congress-JDS coalition government in Karnataka for almost 20 months before it collapsed in February 2006, tasted defeat at the hands of BJP's Bhagawant Khuba in Bidar.
