Bangalore, Sep 29 (IANS) The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday won the by-poll for the Koppal assembly seat from northern Karnataka.


BJP's Karadi Sanganna bagged over 57,000 votes to Congress candidate Basavaraj Hitnal's nearly 45,000 votes. The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) was way behind with its nominee Pradeep Patil getting just over 19,000 votes.

Over 70 percent of the around 185,000 voters had cast their ballot in the polling held Sep 26 for Koppal, about 300 km from Bangalore.

The by-poll was caused by Sanganna, who had won the Koppal seat in the 2008 assembly polls as JD-S candidate, quitting the house and his party to join BJP in March this year.

With the Koppal victory, the BJP has 121 members, including the speaker, in the 225-seat house that has one nominated member. It has the support of one Independent.

The Congress has 71 members and JD-S 26. There are five more Independents.