Bengaluru, 4 June

Children of three Ministers of the Congress government in the state posted wins in the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka on Tuesday, living up to the expectations of the party that reposed faith in them. In addition, the wife of a state Minister has also emerged victorious.

Even though the Congress tried its best to make several Ministers enter the Lok Sabha election fray, none of them agreed and, instead, they proposed the candidature of their family members. The Congress secured only one seat in Karnataka in the 2019 general elections, and this time it won nine seats, while BJP won 17 and JD(S) won two seats.

Among them is daughter of Karnataka Public Works Department Minister Satish Jarkiholi -- Priyanka Jarkiholi. In her very first Lok Sabha election, she won the Chikkodi seat for the Congress, with a margin of 90,834 votes as she defeated BJP MP Annasaheb Shankar Jolle.

Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre had reasons to celebrate as well as his son --- Sagar Khandre, the youngest candidate in the Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka, won from Bidar seat by a margin of 1,28,875 votes defeating BJP leader and Union Minister Bhagwanth Khuba.

According to the Election Commission, the 26-year-old secured 6,66,317 votes and Khuba 5,37,442.

Sagar thanked the voters of Bidar and the senior leaders and workers of the Congress party for blessing and supporting him. "We will work hard for the people and definitely any problem people face, we will definitely be there for them and we will be their voice. I would like to thank everybody who supported us in this election. All our Congress party senior leaders, our party's karyakartas. Our party members worked very hard and unitedly," he told PTI Videos.

His father also expressed gratitude to all the voters, who ensured his win as he claimed his son would be the youngest Member of Parliament in the 18th Lok Sabha.

Minister HC Mahadevappa's son -- Sunil Bose -- won the Chamarajanagar seat by a margin of 1,88,706 votes as he defeated BJP's S Balaraj, a former Kollegal MLA. According to the Election Commission, Bose secured 7,51,671 votes while Balaraj got 5,62,965.

However, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy's 41-year-old daughter Sowmya Reddy, who was fielded from Bengaluru South segment, faced a setback as she lost to MP and BJP Youth Wing chief Tejasvi Surya by a margin of 2,770,83 votes.

In Bagalkot, 30-year-old law graduate and daughter of Agricultural Produce and Sugar Minister Shivanand Patil -- Samyukta Patil too lost to her BJP's 72-year-old PC Gaddigoudar, who has been representing the Bagalkot constituency since 2004, by a margin of 68,399 votes. Son of Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar - Mrinal Ravindra Hebbalkar, who was fielded from Belgaum seat, lost to former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar by a margin of 1,78,437 votes.

Barring Sowmya Reddy, who is a former MLA, none of the others had past legislative experience.

Meanwhile, Prabha Mallikarjun, wife of Minister SS Mallikarjun and daughter-in-law of veteran party leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who too made her electoral debut from Davangere Lok Sabha constituency, became the first-ever woman MP from her constituency. She defeated her opponent -- BJP's Gayathri Siddeshwara by a margin of 26,094 votes.

Once a Congress stronghold, the BJP had been winning the Davangere seat since 1999. However, the 48-year-old Prabha, a dentist, managed to wrest the seat back for Congress as she secured 6,33,059 votes while Gayathri, who is the wife of four-time MP and former union minister GM Siddeshwara, got 6,06,965 votes. Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani won in Gulbarga, against Umesh Jadhav of the BJP by a margin of 27,205 votes.

Deputy Chief Minister and State Congress chief D K Shivakumar's brother DK Suresh who was seeking re-election from Bangalore Rural lost by a margin of 2,69,647 to eminent cardiologist and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's son-in-law Dr CN Manjunath of BJP. Interestingly, this was the only seat Congress had won in 2019.