Congress Secures Bengaluru Mayor Post, Defeats BJP By Three Votes

11 September, Bengaluru

With support from Janata Dal (Secular) and Independents, Congress today clinched the coveted Bengaluru Mayor post as it edged out BJP by a slender three vote margin in the keenly contested city civic body poll.

Congress nominee B N Manjunath Reddy was elected Mayor of Bengaluru securing 131 votes while his rival B Manjunath Raju of BJP managed to get 128 votes.

BJP, which had emerged as the single largest party in the August 22 polls to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) bagging 100 of the 198 wards, dubbed the Mayoral poll outcome as being against the people’s mandate to it.

However, the mayoral poll result is subject to the outcome of a petition by BJP corporators in the Karnataka High Court challenging the Section 10 of Karnataka Municipal Act 1976, which allows both non-corporators and corporators to vote in the Mayoral poll.

First-time JDS corporator S P Hemalatha, wife of MLA K Gopalaiah, was elected as Deputy Mayor securing 131 votes in the electoral college of 260, which included 62 non-corporators comprising members of Parliament, Legislative Assembly and Legislative Councils. Regional Commissioner Jayanthi, Presiding officer, declared the results.