H.N. Ravindra, defeated Congress candidate, attributed his loss in the polls to the Legislative Council from South Graduates’ Constituency to division of votes and a huge number of invalid votes. Writer K.S. Bhagavan, who was also in the race, took away most of the Congress votes. He found during the counting that many invalid votes were in his favour, but because the voters had made errors while casting votes, he failed to benefit from them. Mr. Ravindra added that over 5,500 votes had become invalid in the elections. Apart from this, there were a series of strikes, particularly by lecturers, prior to the elections, and delay in announcing sops to lecturers had also resulted in many educationists turning hostile to the party, he said. He went on to say that the outcome of the elections was not a pointer to the performance of the Siddaramaiah government, even though it was the hometown of the Chief Minister.
Outcome of elections not a pointer to the performance of Siddaramaiah government, he says
