Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai concedes defeat

HAVERI, BENGALURU: With the Congress set to sweep the state, incumbent Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Saturday conceded defeat saying that the BJP has not been able to make the mark.

Speaking to reporters in Haveri, the outgoing CM said, “The results are in the final stages and we have not been able to make the mark despite a lot of efforts put in by everybody, right from our Prime Minister and our workers. We’ll do a detailed analysis once the final results are out. As a national political party, we will see what are the gaps and deficiencies at different levels and improve upon it. We take this result in our stride. We will reorganise the party and come back in Lok Sabha elections”.

Meanwhile, his convoy gots stuck in Haveri as Congress workers cheered on along the route to celebrate their party’s comfortable win in the Karnataka Assembly polls.

Reacting to the outcome of the polls, outgoing minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, who won from Malleswaram in Bengaluru, said, “…Right now, the people’s verdict is in favour of Congress. It is very surprising to see this result. BJP in Karnataka did extremely well. We need to accept people’s verdict, it is in the favour of Congress…Let’s see the factors that went against BJP, let’s discuss and debate later.”

Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “We respect and accept the verdict. We will contribute to our state and our people as a constructive Opposition.”

Congress leader B K Hariprasad said, “This is a clear message for the 2024 General election and the upcoming state elections in three states — the BJP has to go. This is a good mandate against BJP’s false promises and negative politics.We had received a clear mandate much earlier. Still, they formed the government by poaching our MLAs. People didn’t want to experiment this time, so they gave a clear mandate”.