Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy beat the Bharatiya Janata Party’s BN Prahlad by 2,900 votes to win the the Jayanagar Assembly seat in Karnataka’s capital city Bengaluru on Wednesday. Around 55% of the voters had turned up to exercise their franchise on Monday.

The Congress got 54,457 votes, while the BJP got 51,568 votes, News18 reported. With this win, Congress has 80 seats in the state and 15 of the 28 Assembly seats in Bengaluru.

Polling in the constituency was deferred after sitting MLA BN Vijaykumar died a few days before the May 12 Assembly elections. The 59-year-old was the BJP’s candidate and had already represented the constituency twice.

BN Prahlad is BN Vijaykumar’s brother, while Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy is the daughter of former minister Ramalinga Reddy. The Janata Dal (Secular) withdrew its candidate last week and announced that it would support Reddy.

Assembly elections

The Assembly elections in the state last month threw up a hung verdict. The Congress and the JD(S), along with the Bahujan Samaj Party and two independents, have 118 MLAs while the BJP has 104 legislators. Elections in two seats – Jayanagar and Rajarajeshwari Nagar – were deferred. The Congress won the Rajarajeshwari Nagar seat on May 30.

BJP’s BS Yeddyurappa was initially sworn in as the chief minister but resigned two days later as his party did not have the numbers to prove its majority. The Congress and the JD(S) forged a post-poll alliance to form the government, and JD(S) Karnataka president HD Kumaraswamy took oath as chief minister on May 23.