Bangalore: 11:35 am: Congress leader and actress Ramya wins from Mandya Lok Sabha seat by 50,000 votes.
11:05 am: Congress MLA DK Suresh defeats former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy's wife Anitha by 1 lakh votes in Bangalore Rural constituency.
10:50 am: Seventy five per cent counting is over and the Congress is leading by over 80,000 votes in Bangalore Rural and by 40,000 votes in Mandya.
10:30 am: Congress candidate Ramya is leading by over 25,000 votes in Mandya after the counting of votes in 875 booths. Congress MLA DK Suresh has established a big lead of over 45 votes in Bangalore Rural constituency over the JDS candidate Anitha Kumaraswamy.
Congress, the ruling party in Karnataka, is leading in both Lok Sabha seats - Mandya and Bangalore Rural, which went to polls on August 21 - as counting of votes was underway on Saturday.
Famous Kannada heroine and the Congress candidate Ramya is leading in Mandya by over 12,000 votes after the counting of votes in 400 booths. She has already crossed 1 lakh votes and has maintained lead from the first round.
In neighbouring Bangalore Rural, Congress candidate DK Suresh is also leading. He has already established a lead of more than 30,000 votes over the JDS candidate Anitha Kumaraswamy, wife of former Chief Minster HD Kumaraswamy.
DK Suresh is the younger brother of Congress strongman and senior MLA D K Shivakumar.
Final results will be out by the afternoon. A win in these two seats is expected to strengthen Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's position.
The Congress swept to power in the May Assembly polls and JDS had fought an acrimonious and bitter battle. The BJP had backed JDS candidates in the two segments, where bypoll was necessitated following the resignation of N Cheluvarayaswamy (Mandya) and Kumaraswamy (Bangalore Rural) who quit after being elected to the Assembly in May.
Mandya is a bastion of JDS, which won five of the eight Assembly seats in the district in the May elections.
In Bangalore Rural, where Kumaraswamy had won by 1.3 lakh votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress has secured the support of Samajwadi Party MLA, C P Yogeeshwara, who had defeated Anitha Kumaraswamy in the May polls.
(With additional inputs from PTI)
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