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Congress’ Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan on Saturday won the Shiggaon Assembly segment in Karnataka by defeating former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s son Bharath Bommai by a margin of 13,448 votes in the by-poll.

 

Pathan, who faced defeat against Bharatiya Janata Party’s Basavaraj Bommai in the 2023 Assembly polls, secured 1,00,756 votes, while Bharth got 87,308 votes.

 

The bypoll was held on November 13 and the results were announced today.

 

Bypoll for the Shiggaon Assembly segment was necessitated, as the seat fell vacant, following the election of Basavaraj Bommai to Lok Sabha in May elections.

 

Initially, former MLA Syed Azeempeer Khadri, a Congress’ ticket aspirant, had raised a banner of revolt by filing his nomination as an independent, but later withdrew after intervention by party leadership.

 

For Baharath Bommai, this was his first electoral battle. He is the third generation from the Bommai family in electoral politics. Both his father and grandfather (SR Bommai) have served as Karnataka's chief ministers in the past.

 

In a similar vein, Congress' CP Yogeeshwara won the “high profile” Channapatna segment for the ruling party in Karnataka, defeating Janata Dal(Secular) candidate and Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil Kumaraswamy, by a margin of 25,413 votes, in the Assembly bypoll.

 

Actor-turned-politician Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who is former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s grandson, secured 87,229 votes, while Yogeeshwara, a political heavyweight in the segment got 1,12,642 votes.

 

A five-time MLA from the segment and a former minister, Yogeeshwara, who is also an actor-turned-politician, had joined the Congress after quitting the BJP ahead of his nomination.

 

Ahead of joining Congress, Yogeeshwara had appealed to leaders of the BJP-JD(S) alliance to consider giving him a ticket from the saffron party.

 

There were plans to field Yogeeshwara on a JD(S) ticket, but he was not interested in it, and instead wanted Kumaraswamy to support him as BJP candidate. This was not acceptable to Kumaraswamy and his party, following which Yogeeshwara jumped ship.

BJP and JD(S) leaders including Deve Gowda, B S Yediyurappa had together campaigned for Nikhil in Channapatna.

 

This is the third electoral defeat for Nikhil.