The results of the bypolls to two Assembly seats in Karnataka — Davangere South and Bagalkot — will be announced on May 4, 2026, as the Congress government enters the final stretch before turning three years old.
For the Congress, the count is about holding both seats. For the BJP, it is about taking both. That makes the day a sharp test of political momentum in a state where every seat is being read as a signal, even before the official numbers are out.
In Davangere South, the contest carries a family name as much as a party label. Samarth Mallikarjun is trying to retain the seat within his family after the death of his grandfather, veteran Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa. The BJP has fielded T. Srinivas Dasakariappa against him.
Mallikarjun’s selection had sent ripples through the Congress and caused heartburn among Muslim leaders, a sign that the party’s choice was not universally welcomed even before the campaign ended. The bypoll became more than a routine local contest from that point on, with questions inside the party running alongside the fight against the BJP.
On Sunday, election observer Kumar Ramanikanth visited the counting centre for the Davangere South Assembly byelection along with officials, a final procedural step before the result is declared. The scene underlined how closely watched the count is expected to be when the numbers are released on Monday.
The stakes are clear. The Congress is hoping to keep Davangere South and Bagalkot in its column, while the BJP says it is confident of winning both. In Davangere South, the outcome will also show whether the late Shivashankarappa’s political legacy can still carry his family through another election, or whether the seat changes hands at a moment when both sides are treating every vote as a measure of strength.
By Monday evening, the question will no longer be which party talks up its prospects. It will be which one can actually point to the seats and say it held, or took, what mattered most.
