Asking people to vote in large numbers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said 'Let's build a 40-per cent-commission-free government' as he also asked the people to vote for women's rights, youth employment, and betterment of the poor'. Voting for the high-stakes Assembly elections in Karnataka began early on Wednesday in a state where the ruling BJP is eyeing to script history by retaining its southern citadel while a combative Congress is seeking a comeback ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In a tweet in Hindi, Gandhi said, "Karnataka's vote… for 5 guarantees, for women's rights, for youth employment, for the upliftment of the poor. Come, vote in large numbers." The run-up to the polls witnessed a number of wars of words between the senior party leaders. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed Congress in each of his rallies, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi responded with corruption and unemployment charges against him.
The state is seeing a three-cornered fight between the incumbent BJP, an aggressive Congress and the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular), which would hope to play kingmaker again.
A total of 2,615 candidates are in the fray. Karnataka has 224 constituencies spanning six regions -- Bengaluru, Central, Coastal, Hyderabad-Karnataka, Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka or Old Mysore region. Mumbai-Karnataka and Southern Karnataka are the largest regions of the state and consist of 50 and 51 Assembly seats respectively.
While BJP will hope to buck the 38-year trend of Karnataka never voting the incumbent party to power since 1985, Congress will look to wrest the state despite forming a government after the last election in 2018.
In the 2018 election, Deve Gowda's son HD Kumaraswamy became the CM after JD(S) entered into a post-poll alliance with Congress. No party secured a majority in that election. However, the government lasted barely a year, with BJP weaning away MLAs, leading to the collapse of the JD(S)-Congress government in July 2019. BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the House in the 2018 election, winning 104 seats.