Ramanagara: Though Congress and Janata Dal (S) have formed a coalition government in the state, in a rarest of rare case, Congress supported a BJP candidate in municipal council president’s election at Ramanagara, which led to the defeat of Janata Dal (S).
It is a known fact that Ramanagara is the home constituency of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. However, the BJP candidate emerged victorious in the election, which was held on Monday, September 17. Surprisingly, with support from Congress the BJP candidate has become municipal president.
Rathnamma Papanna from BJP and Sujatha from JDS had contested in the president’s election. Rathnamma was was supported by Congress to keep the JDS candidate at bay. Rathnamma secured 19 votes, whereas JDS candidate Sujatha could get only 11 votes. What’s even more interesting is that Minister D K Shivakumar’s brother D K Suresh Kumar supported and cast his vote in favor of BJP candidate Rathnamma.
The election was announced as Congress councilor, P Ravikumar, who was the president for the first 20 months term, was unseated by his own party men by moving a no-confidence motion. This municipality has 31 councilors including MP. It may be recalled that Kumaraswamy had contested from two constituencies Ramanagara and Channapatna and later deserted Ramanagara constituency. Hence, he did not have the voting right here.
