Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) BN Prahlad by a margin of 2,889 votes in the bypoll for the Jayanagar Assembly seat in Karnataka, on Wednesday, 13 June.
In the Karnataka Assembly elections, held on 12 May, the Congress had won 78 seats, second to the BJP's 104. Two weeks after the results were declared, Congress MLA Siddu Nyamagouda, from Jamkhandi constituency, died in a road accident. However, the party retained the RR Nagar seat on 31 May, and with the victory in Jayanagar, the Congress now has 79 legislators in the 224-seat Assembly.
Election to the Jayanagar constituency was countermanded after the death of BJP candidate and incumbent MLA BN Vijayakumar. The polling was conducted on Monday, 11 June, and more than 50 percent of the electorate turned out to vote.