In a major setback to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Kalaburagi district, the Opposition Congress successfully won seven out of nine Assembly seats, and the BJP slipped from the five seats it won in the last elections to two this election.
The Congress not only managed to retain all four seats (Afzalpur, Chittapur, Jewargi, and Kalaburagi North constituencies) but also wrested three, Aland, Kalaburagi South, and Sedam, from the BJP.
The BJP managed to retain only two seats, Kalaburagi Rural and Chincholli.
Two leaders of the Congress, Priyank Kharge (Chittapur), son of AICC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge, and Ajay Singh (Jewargi), son of former Chief Minister the late N. Dharam Singh, secured a hat-trick of wins.
Interestingly, two Lingayat leaders and sitting BJP MLAs, Dattatreya Patil Revoor (Kalaburagi South) and Rajkumar Patil Telkur (Sedam), who were also appointed as chairman of KKRDB and KKRTC, respectively, lost.
In Chittapur, Mr. Priyank Kharge (81,323) defeated the BJP’s Manikanth Rathod (67,683) by 13,640 votes. In Jewargi, Mr. Ajay Singh (70,810) drubbed Janata Dal (Secular) candidate Doddappagowda Patil Naribol (60,532) by 10,278 votes. The BJP candidate Shivaraj Patil Raddewadagi (29,564) was pushed to the third place.
In Kalaburagi South, Mr. Revoor, who represented the seat in 2013 and 2018, was defeated by the Congress candidate Allamprabhu Patil by 21,048 votes.
In Sedam, former Minister and Congress leader Sharanprakash Patil (93,377) defeated Mr. Telkur (49,816) by 43,561 votes.
