Mayor, former mayor fail to make it to Assembly

BBMP mayor Sampath Raj and former mayor G Padmavati tasted defeat in their attempt to enter the Legislative Assembly.

Two-time corporator, Sampath Raj, the Congress candidate from the CV Raman Nagar seat, lost to S Raghu of the BJP.

However, Sampath Raj, a corporator from DJ Halli ward, managed to get 46,660 votes, giving a fight to two-time winner S Raghu. In 2013, Raghu had won the elections from the very constituency by a margin of 53,364 votes. However, this time, Raghu could manage to register a win with a margin of 12,227 votes.

Former mayor G Padmavathi lost to the incumbent BJP legislator S Suresh Kumar by a margin of 9,453 votes. In the 2008 Assembly elections also, Padmavati had lost to Suresh Kumar by a margin of 14,660 votes.

Padmavati is four-time (1989, 1996, 2001 and 2015) corporator from Prakash Nagar ward (ward number 98). She was the 50th mayor from September 2016 to September 28, 2017.

Meanwhile, R Shankar, a former BBMP deputy mayor, has pulled off a surprise victory over the mighty Congress leader and Legislative Assembly speaker K Koliwad in Ranebennur constituency.

Contesting from the Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party, Shankar won the seat by a margin of 4,338 votes. Shankar was the corporator of Maruthisevanagar ward in Bengaluru in 2001.

R Narayanaswamy, also a former mayor of the BBMP, lost from Nelamangala constituency to Dr K Srinivasamurthy of JD(S). Contesting from a Congress ticket, Narayanaswamy lost to incumbent MLA Sreenivasamurthy by a margin of 24,321 votes. R Narayanaswamy was HMT ward corporator in the city.