Mangaluru: The counting of votes for the state assembly elections began this morning at 8 am at all the counting centres and initial trends show the BJP making early gains.
Out of the 183 seat for which the trends are avaiable, the BJP is leading in 84 seats. The Congress is leading in 79 seats and the JD(S) is leading in 24 seats.
State BJP president BS Yeddyurappa, R Ashok, Dr. Ashwath Narayan, Vishweshara Hegde Kageri and the Reddy brothers are leading in their constituencies.
Congress state president G.Parameshwara, ministers K J George, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Ramalinga Reddy, Kagodu Thimmappa, U T Khader and Umashree are among the prominent Congress leaders in the lead after initial rounds of counting.
State JDS president and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and his brother H D Revanna are leading in their constituencies, while YSV Datta is trailing in Kadur.
Varthur Prakash and Darshan Puttaraju are the prominent independent candidates trailing in Kolar and Melukote respectively.
In Dakshina Kannada, Umanath Kotian is leading by 19.980 votes in the Moodibidri consituency and three time winner S Angara of BJP is leading by around 2000 votes in the initial rounds of counting. J R lobo of Congress is trailing by 2000 votes in Mangaluru south constituenc, while Moideen Bava is trailing in Mangaluru North constituency.
Raghupathi Bhat and Lalji mendon of BJP have taken slender lead against Pramod Madhwaraj and Vinay Kumar Sorake of Congress in Udupi and Kaup assembly constituencies.
CM stares at defeat in Chamundeshwari
State Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is trailing by a huge margin of 11,624 votes in Chamundeshwari assembly constituency in Mysuru at the end of fourth round of counting, while the former is trailing in Badami by around 420 votes.Siddaramaiah’s son Dr. Yatindra is leading in Varuna assemby constituency .
Kodagu: JDS ahead in Madikeri, BJP in Virajpet
Janata Dal (Secular) candidate and former minister B A Jeevijaya is leading in Madikeri assembly constituency against his opponents from BJP and Congress, while former assembly speaker K G Bopaiah is leading in Virajpet assembly constituency.
