As the Congress inched to victory in the Karnataka Assembly polls, chants of "Rahul Rahul" and "jodo jodo Bharat jodo" echoed across Bengaluru’s Queens Road where the Congress headquarters is located. A big screen outside the party office displayed the live results of the elections, the numbers confirming India's grand old party’s climb towards majority to form the government in Karnataka.
An overjoyed Rizwan Ullah Khan, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) coordinator told TNM that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka had a huge impact on the party's performance in the Assembly elections.
"Rahul Gandhi was in Karnataka for more than 20 days, during which he walked across the state, spreading the message of love and the vision of a united India. This had a huge impact on the people," says Rizwan. At the time, while the counting was still ongoing, he predicted that the lead margin of the Congress will only increase.
Celebrations had begun at the Congress office earlier, when the initial trends began to show, with party workers chanting slogans praising Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, and KPCC chief DK Shivakumar. Some of the workers started bursting crackers as the party's lead margin crossed the halfway mark of 112 seats.
"Our PCC president DKS ensured that the party workers were on their toes ever since he took charge of the party in the state. During the COVID period, while the BJP government was involved in scams and communalism, Congress workers reached out to the common people across the state, " said Ashok Narayan, a party worker.
The party workers also said that this time, there is no need to book resorts as the party will get a comfortable majority to form the government.
The Karnataka Assembly election was held for a total of 224 constituencies, with 36 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and 15 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes on May 10. The state has a total of 5,24,11,557 electors, out of which 5,23,63,948 are general electors. A total of 2,613 candidates contested the elections, out of which 2,427 were male, 185 were female, and one was a transgender person. This time, Karnataka witnessed a record voter turnout of 72.67%.
Power of 5
For the first time, five independent news organisations, The Caravan India, News Laundry, Scroll in and The Wire are coming together on May 13 to give you all the updates about the Elections but without noise and with our ears to the ground.
Watch: Karnataka Election Results Live