Karnataka election result: Mixed bag for rebels as Shettar loses, Savadi romps home in big victory

It was a mixed bag of results for two senior Lingayat leaders, Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi, who switched over to the Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the run-up to the Karnataka assembly elections, the results of which were announced on Saturday.

While Savadi secured a big victory in the Athani seat of Belagavi district, former chief minister Shettar lost his first defeat from the Hubli-Dharwad Central constituency, a seat he previously represented for six times. Both Savadi and Shettar quit the BJP after being denied a party ticket to contest the polls and switched over to the Congress, which pulled out its best performance in over 30 years in the crucial southern state.

Shettar, a prominent Lingayat face in the state, polled 60,355votes (or 37.89% of vote share) as he came a distant second to BJP’s Mahesh Tenginakai, who secured 94,408 votes. The BJP candidate, who was chosen over Shettar by the party leadership, won 59.27%of the vote share in the constituency.

“Shettar is a victim of anti-incumbency as well as he wasn’t able to convince his voters that he was justified in moving to the opposing camp from the party [BJP] that his entire family was involved with since the Jana Sangh days,” said political analyst and former BJP mayor Pandurang Patil. “Workers may switch sides, but when ideological leaders change sides, voters don’t appreciate it.”

On the other hand, former Karnataka deputy chief minister Savadi was able to cash in on the anti-incumbency against his opponent BJP’s Mahesh Kumathalli, who was given the ticket reportedly at the behest of Ramesh Jarkiholi, the BJP strongman from Gokak. Savadi, who joined the Congress on April 14 secured 1,31,404 votes or 68.34% of the vote share as against 55,282 votes (or 28.75%) by Kumathalli, winning by a margin of 76,122 votes.

“That Savadi was able to win with the highest margin among all winning candidates speaks poorly of the decision to ignore him for the party ticket. He was successfully able to convince the voters that he was hard done by the BJP leadership,” said a BJP leader, requesting anonymity.

A three-time former BJP MLA from Athani, Savadi had narrowly lost to Kumthalli, who was then with the Congress, in 2018. Kumthalli was among the 19 Congress and JD(S) legislators who had defected to the BJP in 2019, bringing down the coalition government. Savadi is credited for facilitating Kumthalli’s defection to the BJP.

Shettar and Savadi were the two high-profile Lingayat leaders who deserted the BJP in the run-up to the assembly elections after being denied a party ticket for relatively younger candidates.

At the time of joining the Congress on April 18, Shettar — who was the chief minister of Karnataka from 2012 and 2013 — had said that he was hurt by the BJP’s decision to not give him a party ticket, which, he claimed was “all he wanted”. He had accused BJP national general secretary BL Santhosh of sidelining senior party leaders like him and BS Yediyurappa, whom he credited for building the party in Karnataka.

Savadi had served the state’s transport minister from 2019 to 2021 in the BS Yediyurappa-led government. In 2012, Savadi was forced to resign after he, along with another legislator, was allegedly caught watching porn clips in the assembly.