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.
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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.
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Chikkamagaluru: Wild elephant tosses man sleeping in coffee plantation
Chikkamagaluru: A wild elephant attacked a farmer sleeping in a coffee plantation near Hukkunda village in the Allur area of Chikkamagaluru district on Sunday morning.
Narayan Gowda, the farmer, was guarding coffee beans spread out for drying when the elephant lifted him with its trunk and tossed him aside. Fortunately, he landed on a pile of hay nearby, avoiding severe injuries. He sustained minor injuries and was admitted to a hospital.
The locals immediately informed the Forest Department officials, who rushed to the spot and took necessary action.
With increasing incidents of wild elephant menace in the region, villagers have urged the authorities to relocate the elephants to a different area.
