Siddaramaiah quits as Congress Legislative Party leader after Karnataka bypolls debacle
Bangalore/IBNS: As the Congress failed to deliver strong results in the Karnataka bypolls, former state CM Siddaramaiah quit as Congress Legislative party leader on Monday.
He also resigned as the leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly.
"I am taking the moral responsibility & resigning as Leader of CLP & Leader of Opposition," he tweeted.
The ruling BJP bagged 10 seats and was leading in two others out of 15 constituencies as results of the Karnataka bypolls were announced on Monday.
The Congress just won Hunasuru and Shivajinagar seats.
The Janata Dal Secular (JDS) won no seats so far.
The BJP, which had won 105 seats in 2018 state polls, will increase its tally now to 118 with the support of an Independent.
The Congress has 66 while JDS now falls down to 34.
After the people of Karnataka gave a fractured mandate in 2018, the Congress and JDS quickly joined hands to form the government with JDS leader HD Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister.
Though Yediyurappa was sworn in as the Chief Minister for two days prior to Kumaraswamy's assumption of power, the BJP leader had failed to prove its majority.
Accepting defeat, Congress leader DK Shivakumar said, "We have to accept the result...We accept our defeat but Congress won't vanish."
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.