‘Sorry amma’: CM to minister Laxmi Hebbalkar on son’s Lok Sabha poll defeat

BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday expressed his regret to his Cabinet colleague Laxmi Hebbalkar after her son Mrunal Hebbalkar lost the just concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Ministers from Belagavi, Laxmi Hebbalkar and Satish Jarkiholi, called on the CM on Sunday. While Hebbalkar’s son lost the polls, Jarkiholi’s daughter Priyanka Jarkiholi won from Chikkodi Lok Sabha constituency.

The CM felicitated Priyanka Jarkiholi on her Lok Sabha electin win.

On spotting Laxmi Hebbalkar while entering the room at his home office, CM Siddaramaiah said, “Yenamma, sorry amma”, following which she became emotional and didn’t speak. She, however, joined the felicitation for Priyanka Jarkiholi and was seen standing next to Satish Jarkiholi.

Speaking to media persons on the election loss on Monday, she said, “We will discuss with our party workers and leaders about what went wrong. It is always a triangular fight in our constituency. During the Assembly election, the MES had cornered 45,000 votes. It appears that the MES and BJP had come together”.

“In the Belagavi Lok Sabha byelection last time, Satish Jarkiholi had got four lakh votes and the MES candidates had secured 1.3 lakh votes. Our lead was 4,000 votes, but this time, despite getting 5,93,000 votes, the lead was big and the MES candidate got only 9,000 votes. There may be many reasons, we will have to look into it, where we went wrong. We accept the defeat with humility and accept the people’s verdict”, she said.

Meanwhile, the CM is scheduled to meet Congress MLAs from Bengaluru later today evening along with Deputy CM D K Shivakumar who is in charge of Bengaluru, at his home office ‘Krishna’. The MLAs are expected to discuss issues pertaining to the city during the meeting.