Karnataka CM Gowda accepts defeat in Bellary byelection

Bangalore, Dec 4 (ANI): Accepting the verdict of the Bellary (Rural) Assembly constituency byelection, Karnataka Chief Minister Sadanand Gowda today said that he would look to mend the previous mistakes in the forthcoming polls.

"I wholeheartedly accept the verdict given by the voters of Bellary and I certainly cooperate with Sreeramulu for all the development works in Bellary and I will give all support to him to carry out membership to the Legislative Assembly. Practically this setback was due to the faulty things that have been committed by our people in the earlier days, and because of that only we lost the election," said Gowda.

"I am happy that we are able to secure at least seventy thousand votes in Bellary. We hope the next year in the beginning we will build our party in the coming days," he added.

In Karnataka, giving a jolt to ruling BJP, former Minister B Sreeramulu today won the Bellary (Rural) Assembly constituency byelection, which he contested as an independent after quitting the party, by a huge margin of over 46,000 votes.

Meanwhile, Bangalore city's Congress party chief, G Parmeshwar, reacting to the results said they highlighted the corruption that takes place in such polls.

"The community is consolidated in his favour. Secondly, a lot of money was spent. People will say every time you say the same thing but then the same thing happens every time. You see the beauty of it. We say the same thing and the same thing happens every year. So something has to be done to break this within the system itself. So that is what the election commission and the administration need to look into," said Parmeshwar.

"How did they get this money in few cases? BJP was distributing, Sreeramulu was distributing. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. But Sreeramulu's preparation was much before the notification itself. So naturally he was well prepared before he resigned," he added.

Sreeramulu, who contested the bypoll as an independent after quitting the party, got 74,527 votes.

Congress candidate B Ramprasad came in second with 27,737 votes. BJP candidate P Gadilingappa came third securing just 17,366 votes.

Sriramulu had quit the BJP after a fall out when he was denied a ministerial berth due to his indictment in an illegal mining case.

More than 1,20,000 voters made use of their franchise during last month's poll. (ANI)