Congress won 501 of the 1,184 wards in the polls conducted for 58 urban local bodies in Karnataka’s 20 districts, PTI reported on Friday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won in 433 wards, Janata Dal (Secular) in 45 wards, and 205 seats were won by independent candidates and smaller parties in the region.

The Congress retained the Bankapur town municipal council and Guttal town panchayat in Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai’s Shiggaon constituency. The saffron party also lost the election in state Minister of Transport Department B Sriramulu’s hometown, Nayakanahatti.

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that if overall results were to be considered, the BJP had performed well, PTI reported. He blamed the losses on areas that have a high population of minorities.

“We have performed better than the last time though we should have performed better in this election,” he said. “If you observe, as these places have concentration of minority community voters, we have not been getting good results, but this time due to efforts, in places like Gadag and others, we have got success.”

Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah said that the results reflected BJP’s “hopeless governance”.

“This is an indication of what we can expect in the eventual general elections,” he said in a tweet. “This result has proved that there is a strong wave in the favour of Congress.”

Meanwhile, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee President DK Shivakumar said that while urban local body election results were not a yardstick for future polls, the results “confirm the popularity of Congress ideology and of our people who believe in it”.