BJP's Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar defeats Congress rival M Lakshman in Mysore

Wadiyar is the titular head of the Mysore royal family that enjoys respect in Karnataka's cultural capital and their home, Mysuru, for their contributions to education, irrigation, and other developments.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, the titular head of the Mysore royal family, has defeated his Congress rival M Lakshman by a margin of 1.39 lakh votes.

Wadiyar secured 7,95,503 votes in the Mysore constituency, representing 53.6 percent of the total votes, according to the Election Commission data.

Lakshman, who is considered a close aide to Siddaramaiah and currently serves as the state party spokesperson, garnered 6,53,739 votes. This represents 44.2 percent of the votes.

Mysore Lok Sabha constituency comprises eight assembly segments including Madikeri, Virajpet, Periyapatna, Hunsur, Chamundeshwari, Krishnaraja, Chamaraja and Narasimharaja. Voter turnout in the 2024 elections was 70.6 percent as compared to 69.5 percent in 2019 elections.

The royal push

During this elections, the BJP had chosen Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar to contest from the constituency this year, while denying a ticket to two-term sitting member of parliament Pratap Simha.

Wadiyar, an economics graduate from the University of Massachusetts was crowned the new ‘maharaja’ of the 600-year-old Wadiyar dynasty, in 2015 at the age of 23.

BJP considers Wadiyar to be an influential candidate who holds the potential to tip the scales in favour of the party in the Mysore region, the home district of the current Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah.

The Mysore royal family enjoys respect in Karnataka's cultural capital and their home, Mysuru, for their contributions to education, irrigation, and other developments.

In 2019, Simha defeated CH Vijayashankar, who was the Congress candidate at the time, with a margin of 1,38,647 votes. Simha had also won the seat in 2014 by defeating Adagur H. Vishwanath with a margin of 31,608 votes.

Lakshman's loss is also a setback to the current Siddaramaiah government, although the Congress party performed better than what was projected in exit polls for the state.

On June 1, most exit polls had predicted the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) winning most of the seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka in the Lok Sabha elections.

The NDA comprising BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) was expected to win 23-26 Lok Sabha seats out of the total 28 in Karnataka, which voted in two phases on April 26 and May 7, according to News18 Mega Exit Poll.

The Congress was expected to get just 3-7 seats, it said.