By-poll results: Congress routed in Telangana, bags Sadananda Gowda’s LS seat; BJP loses in Gujarat too

NEW DELHI: By-election results presented a mixed bag for Congress. It lost all seven assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh but made up with wins in Karnataka's Udupi-Chikamagalur parliamentary constituency and Mansa assembly seat in Gujarat. Its ally won the crucial Piravom assembly seat in Kerala too. BJP suffered a drubbing in Karnataka, where the Lok Saba seat vacated by chief minister Sadananda Gowda was wrested by Congress. With this, Congress' Lok Sabha tally went up to 207.

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti showed its dominance by winning Station Ghanpur, Kollapur, Adilabad and Kamareddy and helping an Independent bag Nagarkurnool - all in the Telangana region. BJP wrested Mahboobnagar, defeating the TRS candidate by 1,897 votes. YSR Congress of Jaganmohan Reddy won the Kovur seat in coastal Andhra Pradesh, its first foray outside the home base of Kadapa in Rayalaseema region. In the other results, AIADMK retained Sankarankoil assembly seat in Tamil Nadu, which neighbours Kudankulam, and BJD the Athgarh seat in Odisha.

The by-election verdicts in Karnataka and Gujarat came as a big blow to BJP, which rules the two states. While Gujarat goes to polls later this year, Karnataka faces assembly elections by May next year. The outcome is a wake-up call to the saffron party ahead of the impending electoral battles.

The Mansa assembly segment, which is a part of the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat held by former deputy prime minister LK Advani, had been some sort of saffron bastion with Mangaldas Patel holding the seat without any break since 1995. Congress' Babuji Thakore vanquished Patel's son DD Patel by an impressive margin of over 8,000 votes.

The defeat of the BJP candidate in Udupi-Chikamagalur by 42,000 votes is being attributed to the bitter in-fighting in the party's state unit, which has only intensified after the leadership change. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa had not campaigned for the party candidate.

Congress, understandably, was jubilant over the verdict in the two states, and projected it as a manifestation of the change in voters' mood. "It is an indicator of the mood for change in Gujarat and Karnataka,'' party spokesman Rashid Alvi told newspersons. It, however, sought to downplay the reverses suffered by it in Andhra Pradesh. However, its leader Keshav Rao, who was denied a Rajya Sabha seat, said the rout was due to Congress' lack of a clear stand on the Telangana issue.

The Piravom by-election result has come has a big relief to the UDF government in Kerala. Kerala Congress (Jacob) candidate Anup Jacob vanquished LDF's MJ Jacob by a margin of 12,070 votes. The UDF, which has a wafer thin margin in the state assembly had won the seat last summer by just 157 votes. UDF's strength had been reduced to 71 in the 140-member assembly with the death of TM Jacob.