Congress leader Veerappa Moily who served as Chief Minister of Karnataka between 1992 and 1994 has lost in his Chikkballapur Lok Sabha constituency with 5,63,802 votes. BJP’s BN Bache Gowda’s vote count currently stands at 7,45,912. The margin of the latter’s victory is 1,82,110 votes.
Chikkabllapur has always been a stronghold of the Congress with Veerappa Moily himself winning in the last two Lok Sabha elections in 2009 and 2014. In 2014, his win came with a narrow margin of 9,520 votes with BJP’s BN Bache Gowda closely following him.
He was first elected from Karkala in Udupi district as an MLA in 1992. He won from there six consecutive times.
The former Petroleum minister first became a minister in the Devaraj Urs cabinet. He was the Minister of State for Small Scale industries and held the position from 1974-77. After Bangarappa resigned in 1992, he became the chief minister of Karnataka. In 2009, he became the Chikkballapur MP.
He was a cabinet minister from 2009 and 2014 and held both, Law and Justice as well as Corporate Affairs portfolios. Another portfolio he held is Finance and Planning (1980-1984) in Karnataka.
Moily had chaired the Tax Reforms Commission (2000-2002) and the Revenue Reforms Commission (2002-2004). Between 2006 and 2009, he was the chairperson of the Oversight Committee for implementation of 27% reservation for OBCs in central educational institutions.
Veerappa Moily was the Union Minister of Corporate Affairs in the Manmohan Singh cabinet.
The minister was also embroiled in controversy in 2014 when the Anti-Corruption Branch of New Delhi named him, Reliance Industries chairperson Mukesh Ambani, former Minister Murli Deora and former Director-General of Hydrocarbons VK Sibal for allegedly colluding to fix natural gas prices. They were accused of inflating gas prices to be costlier than the production cost, as well as capping production before capacity level to seek upward revision.