Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday submitted his resignation to state Governor Vajubhai R. Vala following the defeat of the ruling Congress in the May 12 assembly elections, said an official.
“Though the governor accepted Siddaramaiah’s resignation, he asked him to continue in the post till the formation of the new government,” an official of the Chief Minister’s Office told IANS.
Siddaramaiah submitted the resignation letter to Vala when he visited Raj Bhavan in the evening after the poll mandate, and offered party’s support to the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) for forming the new government.
Of the 222 assembly constituencies, the BJP won 104, the Congress 78 and the JD-S 38.
Election to two assembly segments in Bengaluru were postponed due to electoral malpractice in one (Rajarajeshwari Nagar) and countermanded in Jayanagar following the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) contestant B.N. Vijaya Kumar on May 4.
Although Siddaramaiah lost in Chamundeshwari in Mysuru by a huge margin of 36,042 votes to JD-S sitting legislator H.T. Deve Gowda, he won from Badami in Bagalkot district, defeating BJP’s B. Sriramulu by a slender margin of 1,696 votes.
