BJP leads in two seats, Congress in one in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Feb 16 The BJP led in two seats and the ruling Congress in one seat as officials on Tuesday counted the votes polled in the three assembly by-elections held in Karnataka.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's Y.A. Narayanaswamy was ahead of C.K. Abdul Rahman Shariff (Congress) by 19,149 votes in the high-profile Hebbal segment in Bengaluru North while the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) candidate Ismail Sharieff Nana was trailing behind both with 3,666 votes.

Abdul is the grandson of former union minister C.K. Jaffer Sharief, while Narayanaswamy is a two-time lawmaker of the state legislative council.

In the reserved Devadurga constituency in Raichur district, about 510 km from Bengaluru, BJP's K. Shivana Gouda Nayak led by 16,871 votes over Congress rival A. Rajashekhara Nayak. JD-S contestant Karemma G. Nayak was way behind with 9,156 votes.

In Bidar in the state's north, about 690 km from here, Congress nominee Rahim Khan was ahead of Prakash Khandre of the BJP by 22,825 votes. The JD-S was in third position with 4,307 votes.

Hebbal registered the lowest voting of 45 percent in the by-polls held on Saturday while it was 61 percent in Bidar and 67 percent in Devadurga.

The final results are expected by evening.

The by-elections were necessitated by the death of lawmakers R. Jagadish Kumar of BJP from Hebbal, Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli of BJP from Bidar and Venkatesh Naik of Congress from Devadurga.