Will analyse reasons for Congress’ bypoll defeat, says Shivakumar

State Congress president D.K. Shivakumar said on Tuesday that the party would not question the peoples’ verdict in Sira and Rajarajeshwarinagar, but expressed surprise at the number of votes secured by the BJP in both constituencies.

“We are accepting the verdict given by the people and will hold discussions in the coming days to identify the reasons for our defeat,” he told reporters.

Mr. Shivakumar said the party had expected a close fight in R.R. Nagar and was confident of victory in Sira. “We expected a close fight of around 10,000 votes in R.R. Nagar,” he said. He, however, added that bypoll results generally go in favour of the ruling government in the State.

Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah analysed the defeat in a series of tweets. On the Congress’ defeat in Sira, he said candidate T.B. Jayachandra had ensured flow of river water to help people build their livelihood, but the BJP “ensured flow of money to influence elections”.

On the victory of the BJP’s Munirathna in R.R. Nagar, he said Mr. Munirathna had started preparing for the byelections from the day he defected from the Congress. “But our candidate was selected just before the elections. Munirathna got a lot of time to prepare and this also may have helped him,” the former Chief Minister said.