Karnataka polls: Siddaramaiah wins from Varuna, becomes MLA for 9th time
Mysuru, May 13: Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday got a landslide victory in the Varuna constituency, defeating his nearest rival by a margin of 46,006 votes and entering the Karnataka Assembly for the ninth time.
The 75-year-old leader got 1,19,430 votes against 73,424 polled by his BJP rival and influential Lingayat leader V Somanna. The Bahujan Samaj Party candidate was in third place with 1,075 votes, according to the Election Commission website.
Five-time MLA and outgoing state Housing Minister Somanna was moved out of his Govindaraj Nagar constituency in Bengaluru for the first time to take the Congress strongman head-on in his home turf.
In 2018, Siddaramaiah left the Varuna seat for his son S Yathindra and went on to contest from Chamundeshwari and Badami. While he lost in Chamundeshwari to JD(S) candidate G T Deve Gowda, he defeated the BJP's B Sriramulu by slender a margin of 1,996 votes in Badami.
ALSO READ: Karnataka polls: BJP has not been able to make the mark, says Bommai
Siddaramaiah represented the Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru in the Karnataka assembly five times -- in 1983 as an Independent, in 1985 on a Janata Party ticket, in 1994 and 2004 for the Janata Dal, and in 2006 for the Congress by a lean margin of 257 votes.
In 2008, he shifted to Varuna which is also in the Mysuru region, and registered an easy victory that he repeated in 2013.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission
New Delhi (PTI): Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.
The system is essential to ensure a safe recovery of the crew module -- the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight -- during re-entry and landing.
Union minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.
"Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India's first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota," Singh said in a post on X.
The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft's return to Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.
These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open and the spacecraft's orientation and safety during splashdown etc.
In the IADT-02 test, a simulated crew module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about three kilometres and released over a designated drop zone in the sea, near the Sriharikota coast.
In a statement, the ISRO said, "Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the crew module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated crew module was successfully recovered in coordination with the Indian Navy."
