With the counting of votes set to begin at 8 am Saturday, all eyes are fixated on Karnataka which witnessed a high-octane election campaign between 29 March and 8 May. Polling in the state was held in a single phase on 10 May, amounting to a record voter turnout of 73.19 per cent — the highest since the state was carved out of Mysore State in 1957.
According to the Election Commission of India (ECI), of the 224 assembly constituencies in Karnataka, 36 are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 15 for Scheduled Tribes (STs). Counting across 36 centres will decide the fate of 2,615 candidates in the fray.
In the previous assembly election in 2018, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had emerged as the single-largest party with 104 seats (36 per cent vote), followed by the Congress with 78 (38 per cent vote) and the Janata Dal (Secular) with 37 seats (18 per cent vote).
The incumbent BJP’s bid to retain power rested on the planks of the ‘double engine’ government, Hindutva and support among Lingayats, who account for 17 per cent of the state’s population.
On the other side of this fight was the Congress. Its ‘five promises’ and eye-catching ‘PayCM’ and ‘TroubleEngineSarkara’ campaigns generated a lot of buzz.
The third player with skin in the game is the JD(S).
Of the 10 exit polls released on 10 May, three predicted that the Congress would cross the majority mark of 113, while two placed their bets on the BJP getting a majority on its own. The remaining five, while predicting that the state could be headed in the direction of a hung assembly, prophesied that Congress would emerge as the single largest party.
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