An Election Commission official said the recounting of postal ballots in Jayanagar was ordered following an appeal by BJP’s Ramamurthy
BJP candidate C K Ramamurthy emerged as the winner of the Jayanagar seat in Karnataka, defeating his Congress rival Soumya Reddy by a slim margin of 16 votes. Heavy security was deployed outside the Counting Centre at S S M R V College in Jayanagar as a tussle broke out between the security forces and supporters of both the main parties – Congress and BJP – in the late hours of Saturday over multiple rounds of recounting of votes in the Karnataka assembly election results.
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This came after the Election Commission (EC) ordered the recounting of postal ballots in the constituency where Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy is in a close contest with BJP’s CK Ramamurthy.
An EC official was quoted as saying by news agency PTI that the recounting of postal ballots was ordered following an appeal by Ramamurthy.
Congress state president DK Shivakumar and party working president Ramalinga Reddy among other office bearers staged a demonstration in protest against the poll body’s order.
Shivakumar tweeted a photo of him sitting with state working president Ramalinga Reddy outside counting centre and said, “The Congress candidate of Jayanagar Assembly Constituency Mrs. Sowmya Reddy has won but protested against the action of the election officials who tried to distort the result on the pretext of recount.”
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According to the Election Commission website, the Karnataka Assembly election results show the Congress winning 135 seats out of the total 224 seats, while the BJP and JD(S) have won 66 and 19 seats respectively.
