"I Wish Siddaramaiah All The Best": DK Shivakumar On Chief Minister Tussle

Election Results 2023: The BJP lost its only bastion in the south today as the Congress registered a huge win in Karnataka, winning over 130 of the state's 224 seats. The BJP is ahead on 60-plus seats and HD Kumaraswamy's JD(S) has won 19 seats.

Congratulating the people of Karnataka and the workers of the party, Congress's Rahul Gandhi said, "The market of hate has been shut, and shops of love have opened".

Conceding defeat shortly after noon, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, "In spite of a lot of efforts put in by the Prime Minister and the BJP workers, we have not been able to make the mark". "We take this result in our stride to come back in Lok Sabha elections," added Mr Bommai, whose government had faced massive corruption allegations for the better part of two years.

The Karnataka results are expected to boost the Congress ahead of next year's general elections and the assembly polls in three states later this year. The party is hoping to make a comeback in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It is also hoping to win back Madhya Pradesh, where its government crashed in 2020 with the defection of Jyotiraditya Scindia and his loyalists.

The BJP came to power in Karnataka in July 2019, after the collapse of the coalition government of JD-S and the Congress, which was formed after the 2018 election. The BJP managed to secure the support of several rebel MLAs from the coalition, who later joined the BJP and won by-elections. The BJP currently has 121 MLAs in the assembly, while the Congress has 70 and the JD-S has 30. The BJP also changed Chief Minister during its tenure, with BS Yediyurappa resigning in July 2021 and being replaced by Basavaraj Bommai.