Veerappa Moily hails Congress victory in Karnataka bypolls

NEW DELHI: Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily on Saturday hailed Congress' thumping victory in bypolls for two Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka as a big game changer ahead of general elections.

Congress dealt a big blow to the JD(S) in its heartland when it wrested the Mandya and Bangalore Rural seats from it with impressive margins.

"The success of the candidates has more significance as JD (S) had obtained the support of BJP. This win will herald a big game changer for the next Lok Sabha elections not only in Karnataka but also India," Moily said in a statement.

Claiming that UPA will bounce back to power again after 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Karnataka strongman said success was attributable to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Multilingual actress Ramya on her electoral debut defeated C S Puttaraju of JD (S)in Mandya, the nucleus of his party's Vokkaliga vote base, by a margin of 67,611 votes.

In Bangalore Rural, former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's wife Anitha Kumaraswamy of JD(S) lost by a huge margin of over 1.37 lakh votes to ruling party's D K Suresh, brother of state party leader D K Shivakumar.