Hassan constituency of Karnataka appears to have punished Janata Dal (Secular) member Prajwal Revanna by voting for Congress candidate Shreyas M Patel in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Revanna, accused in sexual abuse and rape case, has lost Hassan Lok Sabha seat to Patel, who has won by a margin of over 44,000 votes.
According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), Patel bagged more than 6,69,000 votes, while Revanna got little over 6,26,000 votes.
In early trends, Revanna, grandson of JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda, was leading. However, later Patel surpassed to claim the victory.
The win in Hassan is considered big for the Congress party in Karnataka.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, JD(S) had only won one seat in Karnataka– Hassan. The constituency was represented by former prime minister Deve Gowda in the lower house for three consecutive terms from 2004 to 2019. However, in the 2019 general elections, he fielded Revanna who bagged a vote share of 52.96 per cent and defeated his nearest rival and BJP leader Manju A by a margin of 11.06 per cent.
The JD(S) contested the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in an alliance with the BJP.
Day after polling in Hassan on April 26, Revanna had fled from India to Germany using his diplomatic passport. He left the country after pen drives containing videos of him with different women surfaced and went viral on April 23.
Revanna is currently in police custody till June 6.
‘Not happy with Hassan’s result’
#WATCH | JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy says, "JD(S) got the results that we had expected. But I am not happy about the results in Hassan. Overall, in Karnataka, we would have won another 4-5 seats but because of our mistakes, we lost more than 4-5 seats...People have shown Congress… pic.twitter.com/6KkJLCfeto
— ANI (@ANI) June 4, 2024
Former Karnataka chief minister and uncle of Revanna, HD Kumaraswamy said: “JD(S) got the results that we had expected. But I am not happy about the results in Hassan. Overall, in Karnataka, we would have won another 4-5 seats but because of our mistakes, we lost more than 4-5 seats…People have shown Congress that JD(S) is still alive in Karnataka.”
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