"Though Ballari was not our stronghold, we managed it," says Shivakumar
DK Shivakumar, the Congress's trouble-shooter in Karnataka, had reasons to celebrate today as the party won bypolls in four of five seats, including the Ballari Lok Sabha constituency that has been a BJP stronghold for several years.
Mr Shivakumar played a key role in forming his party's alliance with HD Kumaraswamy's Janata Dal Secular and blocking the BJP, which won the most number of seats, from taking power after the May assembly elections.
Months later, the Congress handed him a new task - winning Ballari. Mr Shivakumar was in charge of the campaign in Ballari which has for years been the homebase of Janardhana Reddy and his brothers and their aide B Sriramulu.
Congress candidate VS Ugrappa was seen as a rank outsider against V Shantha of the BJP, the sister of Mr Sriramulu, who vacated the constituency to contest the May assembly election.
Mr Shivakumar says the impressive show of the Congress candidate in Ballari is the result of team efforts.
"Though Ballari was not our stronghold, we managed it. All of us have worked together to achieve this. It worked out in a very systematic way," said.
Asked about how he sees his work and the controversies he has courted, Mr Shivkumar quipped: "More work means more mistakes, less work means less mistakes and no work means no mistake."
As the Congress celebrated victory, Mr Shivkumar said "as far as the south India is concerned the Ram Mandir issue cannot be made a political plank by the BJP. People here only look at what benefit they are going to get on the social sector, on the administration, on the economic sector, on transparency, and so on."
The bypoll results are also seen as a marker ahead of next year's national elections in the state.
In 2014, the BJP had won 17 of Karnataka's 23 parliamentary seats. The Congress won 9 and HD Kumaraswamy's Janata Dal Secular 2 seats.
"It is the responsibility and the confidence they have in me that is important", Mr Shivakumar earlier told reporters when asked about his role in managing the by-election campaign.
Though he terms himself "political notice", Mr Shivkumar is master of many political games. The way he had kept together the Congress and JD(S) legislators ahead of the floor test in Karnataka in May raised his stocks in the party.
The lawmakers were constantly on the move as their parties tried to sequester them from attempts to bribe them or threaten them into switching over the BJP.
The legislators who were kept in Hyderabad were taken to Bangalore in buses after an eight-hour post-midnight journey for the floor test.
The Congress didn't spare any effort to win back Ballari seat. The party had formed a 64-member jumbo team of senior leaders to wrest the Ballari from the BJP. Each of the eight assembly segments in Ballari was assigned to eight leaders including ministers.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)