Congress leader and Bengaluru Development and Town Planning Minister KJ George has won from the Sarvagnanagar constituency in Bengaluru by a margin of over 50,000 votes (as of 4.30pm). BJP’s MN Reddy stood a distant second with 52,363 votes (as of 4.40pm). The JD(S)’Anwar Sharieff and AAP’s Prithvi Reddy were among the others vying for the seat.
George has won the Sarvagnanagar assembly constituency two consecutive times. In 2013, he won the assembly segment defeating BJP's Padmanabha Reddy by a massive margin of 22,853 votes. In the 2008 polls, George defeated the BJP's R Shankar by a margin of over 20,000 votes. George polled 45,488 votes against Shankar who polled 22,880.
Controversies
KJ George is one of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's closest aides. He has, however, had a political career dotted with controversies.
A multimillionaire businessman-turned-politician, George reportedly owns huge swathes of land in Bengaluru city. He has allegedly built several software parks on those benami properties which earn tens of crores in rent every month. George has reportedly often said that he is not in politics to make money, since he already makes enough legally from his businesses.
In October last year, the CBI registered a case of abetment of suicide against George, who was earlier the state Home Minister, and two senior state police officials in connection with the suicide of Deputy Superintendent of Police MK Ganapathy.
Ganapathy had hanged himself to death on July 7, 2016 in Madikeri, about 250km to the west of the state capital. In a television interview given hours before his death, Ganapathy had accused George, and the other two officials of harassing him. After a plea by Ganapathy's father MK Kushalappa, a CBI probe was ordered into the case by the Supreme Court. George has denied all allegations against him and claimed that he was being framed. The Opposition demanded George's resignation, but Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ruled out any such move calling the BJP's actions politically motivated.
"George had resigned once (July 18, 2016) after the local (Madikeri) court ordered the local police station to register the case against him and the two police officers and was re-inducted into the cabinet (September 26, 2016) only after the CID found George had no role in the DSP's suicide," Siddaramaiah had said then.
George was also criticised for relentlessly backing the controversial steel flyover project that many activists and citizen groups called anti-people and anti-environment. There were also allegations that several top Congress ministers had received kickback for the decision to go ahead with the steel flyover project. The project was ultimately scrapped by the government in 2016 following massive protests from citizen groups.
His name has also been linked to the suicide of IAS officer DK Ravi in 2015. Known to be an honest officer, who had taken on the sand mafia in Kolar, his death had triggered widespread protests in parts of Karnataka. His family members have pointed fingers at the ruling Congress and in particular then Home Minister KJ George for driving Ravi to suicide.
A rating of incumbent MLAs in the city, released by BPAC in April, however saw George at the top of the list. The MLAs were ranked out of 100 for their performance in eight areas such as attendance in Assembly, utilisation of MLA LAD (Local Area Development) fund, criminal record and educational qualification. George scored 87.
With IANS inputs