JD(S) leader and former Minister Basavaraj Horatti registered a historic victory in the biennial elections to the Karnataka West Teachers’ constituency of the Legislative Council by winning for the seventh consecutive term.
Mr. Horatti, who was first elected from this constituency in 1980, secured 7,480 votes this year and defeated nearest rival M. Nagaraj of the BJP by a margin of 3,109 votes. Mr. Horatti, who has served as Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, is a postgraduate in physical education and was a teacher before jumping into politics.
In the South Graduates’ Constituency poll, JD(S) candidate K.T. Srikante Gowda was leading at the time of going to the press. At the end of the fifth round of counting, Mr. Gowda had secured 16,521 votes followed by BJP’s M.V. Ravishankar, who polled 15,791. Congress candidate H.N. Ravindra was in the third position by securing 7,833 votes.
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Writer K.S. Bhagavan had polled 2,220 votes, while Kannada protagonist Vatal Nagaraj had secured 692 votes.
In both the Karnataka North West Teachers’ and Karnataka North West Graduates’ constituencies, BJP candidates Arun Shahpur and Hanmanth Nirani were leading by comfortable margins over their immediate Congress rivals at the end of second round of counting of votes.
However, given the substantial lead maintained by Mr. Shahpur, his supporters celebrated his victory even before the completion of the counting process.
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In the Karnataka North West Graduates’ constituency, Mr. Nirani, brother of former Minister Murugesh Nirani, was leading by 6,918 votes over his nearest Congress rival and sitting MLC Mahantesh Koujalgi at the end of the second round of counting.