Supreme Court cancels Karnataka BJP MLC Pranesh’s election, Congress wins seat

3 min readBengaluruJul 16, 2026 07:48 PM IST

Congress candidate A V Gayathri Shanthegowda welcomed the Supreme Court decision. (Photo: Facebook/Mrs AV Gayathri Shanthegowda)

The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the 2021 election of BJP MLC M K Pranesh from the Chikkamagaluru local authorities constituency. Congress candidate A V Gayathri Shanthegowda thus became the winner.

Pranesh had moved the Supreme Court challenging a recount the Karnataka High Court ordered in January 2025 after a dispute arose when he had been declared the winner of the December 2021 Legislative Council election by a narrow margin of six votes.

As Pranesh received 1,188 votes against Gayathri’s 1,182, she challenged the results, contending that election rules were violated by votes cast by nominated members of local town panchayats—who were not entitled to vote during the MLC polls—and citing improper acceptance and rejection of ballot papers, along with other irregularities in the counting process.

The recount took place one and a half years ago.

On Thursday, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Justice Vipul M Pancholi dismissed a special leave petition filed by Pranesh challenging the high court order, paving the way for Gayathri to be declared the winner.

Speaking to reporters, Gayathri said, “Our stand that nominee voters should not have been allowed to vote has been upheld. He had challenged that in the Supreme Court. After reviewing everything, the judges dismissed his petition.”

State Congress president B K Hariprasad welcomed the Supreme Court decision. “In democracy, the people’s verdict is supreme. It cannot be altered by political tricks or by turning the judiciary into a platform for a political battle. The Constitution and the judiciary have once again upheld the trust of the people,” he wrote on X.

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With Pranesh’s disqualification, the Congress’s strength in the 75-member Legislative Council is now 40 and the BJP’s tally has been reduced to 27.

‘Inclusion of nominated members unconstitutional’

While ordering the recount, the high court noted that before filing the election petition, Gayathri and others had approached the court to declare that the inclusion of nominated members in the electoral roll was ab initio void and unconstitutional. The court had allowed this.

Accordingly, the high court held, “When it is held that inclusion of nominated members in the voters list is void and unconstitutional and when it is directed to delete the names of nominated members, it would be appropriate to direct the Returning Officer to segregate ballot papers/votes of the nominated members, without going into the voting to maintain secrecy of voting and to direct re-counting of the votes excluding the ballot papers/votes of nominated members.”