Karnataka's ruling JDS-Congress alliance, which has been ruling the state for the last one year, has failed to successfully convert votes in their favour, election results for the Lok Sabha elections indicated today. The BJP has managed to sweep the southern state, winning 25 seats on its own while the JDS has failed to get its founder Deve Gowda and his grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy elected from their respective seats. Jaganmohan Reddy's YSR Congress seems to be heading for a landslide victory in Andhra Pradesh with all the 25 lawmakers from the Telugu state expected to be from his party. TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, who had been visiting key opposition leaders in Delhi, Lucknow and West Bengal in order to stitch a non-BJP front at the Centre, is expected to draw a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, poll trends showed. The DMK-led front in Tamil Nadu can play a key role in the parliament as it expected to win over 30 seats out of 38 seats in Tamil Nadu, as per trends.
The coastal state of Kerala seems to have voted for the Congress-led UDF front as it is projected to win 19 seats of Kerala's 20 Lok Sabha seats. This is the worst defeat for the ruling LDF government in the state since the 1977 election. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, is leading by over one lakh votes in Wayanad, his second seat along with Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Telangana are expected to play a crucial role in deciding the next government at the centre as they together account for 129 seats of the 543 seats in the lower house. A favourable performance in the Lok Sabha elections will also boost the chances of these leaders to play role of king makers if the BJP or Congress fails to win adequate seats. The BJP has crossed the halfway mark on its own steam and leads showed a NDA sweep in the national elections within two hours of counting of votes. The BJP is doing well in most states, including the three heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, wrested by the Congress in December.