Cong wins two assembly bypolls, BJP suffers defeat in Bellary

NEW DELHI: Congress today won two assembly by-elections in Himachal Pradesh and Haryana gaining one of them, as the party appeared not to have been hit by spate of scams rocking the UPA coalition at the Centre while the ruling BJP suffered a humiliating defeat in Karnataka.

Congress, in fact, got a majority on its own in the Haryana Assembly when it broke a 30-year-old jinx and wrested the Ratia seat from INLD. With today's win, the party now has 46 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.

Of the seven seats to which bylections were held, Congress held one and gained another in Haryana.The BJP, which had two seats, lost one.

The BJP and Congress wrested a seat from each other in Himachal Pradesh.

BJP wrested the Renuka (reserve) Assembly seat from Congress, which struck a blow to the saffron party in its stronghold of Nalagarh.

In Renuka, Hridaya Ram of BJP defeated Vinay Kumar of Congress by 3,526 votes. In Nalagarh, Lakhvinder Singh Rana of Congress defeated BJP's Gurnam Kaur by 1598 votes.

However, in Karnataka the ruling BJP suffered a crushing defeat in Bellary, the stronghold of Reddy brothers, where Independent candidate and former minister Sreeramulu won by a massive margin.

Sreeramulu, a close associate of jailed mining baron and former ministers G Janardhana Reddy and Karunakara Reddy, secured 74,527 votes and retained the seat. BJP finished a poor third with its candidate P Gadilingappa losing the deposit managing only 17,366 votes behind Congress' B Ramprasad who garnered 27,737 votes in the triangular fight.

Sreeramulu, health minister in the Yeddyurappa government and a protege of Reddy brothers, had quit BJP and contested as an independent.