Hanumant Nirani, BJP candidate for the north west won the Karnataka Legislative Council polls by a significant margin. Mr. Nirani, younger brother of Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani got 44,815 votes, that was nearly 78% of the out of the 56,916 valid votes.
He defeated Sunil Sunk of the Congress by over 34,693 votes. Mr. Sunk managed to gather 10122 votes. All the other nine contenders in the fray together collected around 1800 votes.
Counting went on late into Wednesday night and ended in the wee hours of Thursday, as officials were tasked with counting of the 65,922 votes in seven rounds. The paper ballots were sorted and the first preference transferable votes were listed against the names of the candidates. It took them over 17 hours to declare the results finally.
When Regional commissioner and returning officer Amlan Aditya Biswas handed over the certificate of election to Mr. Nirani, the clock had struck 1.10 am.
