Congress’ sitting MLA Munirathna Naidu emerged victorious at Rajarajeshwari Nagar seat in Bengaluru on Thursday winning 1,08,064 votes, increasing his party’s tally to 79 MLAs in the 224 seat assembly.
The party’s decision to go with the ‘tainted’ Munirathna paid off, as at the end of counting, he secured the victory with a margin of 25,492 votes.
BJP’s Muniraju Gowda came a distant second with 82,572 votes while JD(S) candidate Ramachandra got 60,360 votes.
Voting at RR Nagar took place on 28 May, Monday, more than two weeks after the rest of the state had gone to the polls. The Election Commission had pegged the voting percentage to be 54 percent which is almost consistent with the average voter turnout across Bengaluru.
Elections were postponed in RR Nagar after large scale seizures of voter ID cards ahead of the polling from an apartment in the area. Police are probing the incident and in fact, have named Munirathna as the 14th accused in the case. The Election Commission had announced that the 9,700 odd seized voter IDs have been returned to the respective owners.
Since, the elections were held after the post-poll alliance, there was pressure from the JD(S) too, to withdraw his candidature given that a Congress corporator from the area openly backing the JD(S) candidate R Ramachandra.
However, this does not change the political scenario of Karnataka much as the Congress-JD(S) alliance is still struggling to reach a consensus on ministerial berths even a week after HD Kumaraswamy passed the floor test as the 25th CM of the state.
Other than the voter ID scam, Munirathna, a former contractor-turned-corporator and film producer, has been chargesheeted in the Rs 1,500 crore BBMP fake bills scam, which is being probed by the CID.
He was also an accused in a case of an unnatural death of a minor. His own party colleague in May 2017 alleged sexual assault by him and his aides.
(The story was originally published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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