On 4th June, the Election Commission of India announced the results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. Bharatiya Janata Party’s Dr CN Manjunath defeated Congress’s DK Suresh by 2,69,647 from the Bengaluru Rural Lok Sabha seat in Karnataka. As per ECI’s data, Manjunath secured 10,79,002 votes against DK Suresh’s 8,09,355 votes. All other candidates contesting for the seat lost their deposits.
58-year-old DK Suresh is the brother of the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka and state party chief DK Shivakumar. Ramanagara, which comes under Bengaluru Rural constituency is often considered to be their turf.
66-year-old Dr Manjunath was fielded against DK Suresh by the BJP. Notably, Dr Manjunath is a famous cardiologist and son-in-law of former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda.
The constituency they contested from have voters from diverse backgrounds. There are voters from the IT industry in Electronics City, industrial townships in Bidadi, Rajarajeshwarinagar’s apartment complexes and rural areas where agriculture is a notable source of income for the residents.
In 2019, DK Suresh was the only Congress candidate to win the Lok Sabha election in Karnataka. He also won 2013 by-polls and 2014 polls as well. Though his family actively campaigned for him visiting door-to-door seeking votes for him, the final result went against him.
On the other hand, Dr CN Manjunath has served as the head of the state-owned Sri Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research for 18 years. He retired from the service in January 2024. This was Manjunath’s first election. In an interview with Money Control, Dr Manjunath said he decided to contest from Bengaluru Rural at the request of the BJP high command.
Interestingly, he mentioned that in every village he visited during campaigning, there were 10-15 patients who had received treatment from Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research. His being a doctor from such a pristine institute where treatment is affordable helped him gain votes.
DK Suresh called for seperate country of South Indian states
In February this year, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Budget for 2024, there was a negative campaign from Cogress and some I.N.D.I. Alliance leaders. While reacting to the budget, Congress leader DK Suresh accused the centre of not releasing funds to South Indian states. He also went on to say that in future, South Indian states may demand a separate country for themselves and become a separate nation.