Bangalore: The Congress today (Dec 7, 2006) won the Chamundeshwari assembly by-election in Karnataka, its candidate Siddaramaiah winning by a slender margin of 257 votes.

Siddaramaiah overcame the joint candidate of the ruling Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Shivabasappa in a multi-cornered contest.

Siddaramaiah polled 115,512 votes and Shivabasappa 115,255 votes, an Election Commission official told IANS over telephone from Mysore. A total 244,491 votes were polled in the Dec 4 election.

Besides A.S. Guruswamy of the Janata Dal-United and Karunakara from Samajwadi Party, there were also 10 independents in the fray.