NDA leading on 18 seats in Karnataka

New Delhi: In spite of an aggressive campaign by the ruling Congress in Karnataka to provide five “guarantee” schemes to the people of the state, the NDA alliance of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (Secular) are leading in Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka.

Rape accused and JD(S) candidate from Karnataka’s Hassan, Prajwal Revanna is trailing from the Lok Sabha seat.

Congress candidate Shreyas. M Patel is leading with a margin of 43,719 votes.

Bharatiya Janata Party is leading on 16 seats while Janata Dal (Secular) is ahead on 2 seats, as per the Election Commission of India.

With 28 Lok Sabha constituencies, Karnataka is one of the major south Indian states that holds a crucial position in shaping Indian politics.

Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress (INC), which contested alone under the INDIA alliance, is leading on 10 seats of the state.

Lok Sabha polls is a prestige battle for the Congress which came to power with a landslide victory last year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party contested elections on 25 seats whereas Janata Dal (Secular) contested three seats of the state.

Revvana is accused in the high-profile rape case and is facing a probe by the SIT over allegations of sexual harassment and criminal intimidation following a complaint by a woman who worked as a domestic help at his house.

The Hassan Lok Sabha constituency was represented by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda from 1991 to 1994, 1998 to 1999 and again from 2004 and 2014. This constituency comprises Hassan district and Kaduru Taluk in Chikmagaluru district.

In 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 25 seats whereas the Indian National Congress in alliance with Janata Dal (Secular) won 1-1 seat. On the remaining one seat, an independent candidate who was backed by BJP won the elections.

The exit polls predicted that the ruling BJP-led NDA is poised to improve its performance over its 2019 record when it won 352 seats.

Most exit polls have predicted that PM Modi will return to power. If these predictions come true, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will become the first PM after Jawaharlal Nehru to win three successive terms in Lok Sabha polls.

The Lok Sabha elections were conducted in seven phases- on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.

In the 2019 elections, NDA wrested 353 seats, of which the BJP won 303 alone. The Opposition’s UPA got only 93 seats of which the Congress got 52.