Bengaluru: Chief Minister DK Shivakumar emerged the real winner in the legislative council polls for seven seats as the Congress won all five seats it fielded, amid fears of crossvoting, overcoming a serious political challenge thrown at him by JDS leader and union minister HD Kumaraswamy.Govindaraju, the BJP-JDS coalition candidate fielded by the regional party lost, after Shivakumar not only secured all Congress votes, but also managed to snatch a few from the Opposition BJP and JDS in the secret ballot.All 222 MLAs voted. The authorities declared one vote rejected.Four JDS and two BJP MLAs are suspected to have cross voted in the Congress favour, sources said.Congress candidates Thippannappa Kamknoor, PV Mohan, BK Hariprasad, Shivanna and Vinay Karthik Prakash won, bolstering the new CM’s image. BJP’s Lingaraj Patil and Raghu R won as expected.The JDS may have lost, but not before giving some tense moments to the CM. Both Congress and JDS had lodged their MLAs in private resorts to insulate them from the reach of rival camps and foil horse-trading attempts. The MLAs drove to Vidhana Soudha to cast their votes straight from resorts.The JDS, sources said, decided to field its nominee after the BJP promised six surplus votes from its side. That lifted its hopes as the regional party itself has 18 MLAs, and it required four votes to win. But, as it turned out, the JDS candidate got only 14 votes, while the Congress’s Prakash got four extra votes.The JDS took the plunge despite not having enough number of voters, hoping to cash in on the disgruntlement within the Congress. The strategy of Kumaraswamy, who represents Mandya in the Lok Sabha, however, did not work.Both Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy are arch political rivals seeking to establish their dominance in the old Mysuru region. They had attached a lot of importance to the council polls as it turned out to be a proxy war between the two.