Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP) founder and independent candidate Gali Janardhana Reddy has won the Gangavathi Assembly constituency, beating his nearest rival by a margin of 8,266 votes and entering the Karnataka Assembly.

Former Karnataka Minister and mining baron got 66,213 votes against 57,947 polled by his Indian National Congress (INC) rival Iqbal Ansari. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Paranna Eshwarappa Munavalli was in third place with 29,167 votes, according to the Election Commission website.

Reddy, who is an accused in an illegal mining case, had recently formed Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha snapping his two-decade-old association with the BJP.

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Accused in a multi-crore illegal mining case, he has been out on bail since 2015 and several conditions were imposed by the apex court in its order, including prohibiting him from visiting Ballari in Karnataka and Ananthpur and Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh.

Ballari is Reddy's political backyard and, as he is handicapped by the court-imposed restriction on his entry into his home district, he is contesting outside the district, while having fielded his wife from there. Reddy had been by and large inactive politically for nearly 12 years, since the time he was arrested by the CBI for his alleged role in the mining scam.

Gangavathi, also known as Gangawati, Assembly constituency is one of the general seats, which is part of the Koppal parliamentary constituency. The Assembly constituency, located in the Koppal district, has a total of 1,92,738 voters, including 96,199 male voters and 96,538 female voters. The constituency has a sex ratio of 100.4 and an approximate literacy rate of 68.09 percent.

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Bharatiya Janata Party’s Paranna Eshwarappa Munavalli won this seat in 2018, defeating Iqbal Ansari of Congress with a margin of 7,973 votes. Eshwarappa is one of the prominent BJP leaders in the region and he first became an MLA from the Gangavathi constituency in 2008. In 2018, he secured 45.91 percent of the total votes polled. INC’s candidate had secured 40.50 percent votes.

The Karnataka Assembly elections 2023 will see the participation of 9.17 lakh first-time voters. There are a total of 5.23 crore voters in Karnataka. Of the total voters, 12.15 lakh voters are above the age of 80, and 16,976 are above the age of 100.

Voting for 224 Assembly seats of state was held on May 10. A political party needs to secure 113 seats to form the next government in the state.

First Published:May 12, 2023 9:32 PM IST