Rajya Sabha elections: BJP wins big with 3 seats, Congress settles for 1; No luck for JDS

After a big showdown to elect four members from Karnataka to the Upper House of the Parliament, it has come to light that the Bharatiya Janata Party has swung the elections by winning 3 seats. 1 seat has been won by Congress. From the BJP, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, actor-politician Jaggesh and outgoing MLC Lehar Singh Siroya have been named winners while from the Congress, Jairam Ramesh has tasted victory. The grand old party's ' Mansoor Ali Khan and Janata Dal (Secular)'s D Kupendra Reddy have lost after failing to secure the required numbers, which was set at 45. 

Rajya Sabha elections in Karnataka 

In the 224-member Karnataka assembly, the BJP with 121 MLAs and Congress with 70 members were right from the beginning sure to win two seats and one seat respectively. The JDS with just 32 seats had no hope of winning, but had forced a contest for the fourth seat. None of the three parties had the required votes to win the fourth seat, which is why they were reaching out to one another seeking support. 

Ahead of the voting, former Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy hit out at the Congress, accusing the grand old party of attempting to poach Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs to vote in favour of its candidates. The leader alleged that Karnataka LoP Siddaramaiah had asked JD(S) MLAs to vote for the grand old party's candidates for the Rajya Sabha election."Today, before local media he (Siddaramaiah) has said that he didn't write to my MLAs. He had even tweeted the letter from his social media account

However, Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar strongly denied the 'poaching' allegations and asserted that the party had issued a whip only to its MLAs. "We are 69 in number, we issued a whip to all 69. They requested me also, and they requested a lot of other leaders also," he said, wishing HD Kumaraswamy and JD(S) 'all the best.'