The voting was held on Saturday in 222 out of 224 seats in a three-cornered contest among the ruling Congress, the BJP and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's JD(S).
India Today-Axis exit poll, however, put the Congress in a pole position and predicted its tally in the range of 106-118 seats while of the BJP between 79-92. It saw the JD(S) tally between 22-30 seats.
The Poll of Exit Polls on NDTV forecast 97, 90 and 31 seats for the BJP, the Congress and the JD(S) respectively.
Times Now-VMR predicted that the BJP will win 94 seats while the Congress will bag 97 and the JD)S) 28.
However, Times Now-Chanakya forecast a majority for the BJP with 120 seats and gave the Congress and the JD(S) 73 and 26 seats respectively.
The Congress had won 122 seats in the 2013 state Assembly polls following a split in the BJP, which was reduced to 40 seats while the JD(S) also got 40 seats.
Karnataka Elections Exit Poll Live Updates
In the final cut of the Karnataka assembly election 2018 exit poll conducted by ABP News- C Voter, BJP is likely to get majority with 104-116 seats.
- BJP: 104-116
- Congress: 83-94
- JDS: 20-29
- Others: 0-7
As per the average of the exit polls conducted by five major channels, Congress leads in vote sharing.
- Congress: 38 % votes
- BJP: 37 % votes
- JDS: 19 % votes
- Others: 6% votes
BJP leads in the average seat sharing based upon the exit polls of the major channels.
BJP: 98, Congress: 92, JDS: 32
The second cut of ABP News Exit Poll by C-Voter , based upon voting till 4 PM is out and BJP's estimated seat share has risen.
- BJP :107 seats
- Congress: 88 seats
- JDS : 25 seats
- Others: 4 seats
The first cut of exit polls by ABP News C-voter, based upon polling till 2 pm is as follows:
BJP leads with 41% votes, while Congress trailing close with 39% votes.
In terms of seats, BJP leads with winning probability over 97-109 seats, Congress trails just behind with 87-99 seats, JDS has 21-30 seats, while others may win on 1-8 seats .
- BJP: 41 %
- Congress: 39 %
- JDS : seats 17 %
- Others: 3 %
Region wise fragmentation of the first cut of exit polls:
Old Mysore region: (55 seats)
- Congress: 38 %
- BJP: 23 %
- JDS : 36%
- Others: 3 .4 %
Bangalore region (30 seat)
- Congress: 35 %
- BJP: 44 %
- JDS : 16 %
- Others: 5 %
Coastal Karnataka Region (21 seat)
- BJP : 47 %
- Congress: 41%
- JDS : 7 %
- Others:5 %
Central Karnataka region: (35 seats)
- BJP : 45 %
- Congress: 38%
- JDS : 12 %
- Others: 5%
Mumbai Karnataka Region: 50 seats
- BJP : 45 %
- Congress: 45 %
- JDS : 7 %
- Others:3 %
Hyderabad Karnataka Region: (31 seats)
- BJP : 43%
- Congress: 42%
- JDS : 10 %
- Others:4 %
- In the last election, the state recorded a 71 per cent voter turnout.
- The exit poll results will be released at 6:30 pm after the end of voting in the state
- About 56 per cent polling was recorded till 3 pm on the voting day for the fiercely fought Karnataka Assembly polls.
- There has been a strange trend in Karnataka in the past that whoever has formed the government in the southern state has lost the next Lok Sabha election. When BJP chief Amit Shah was asked about it, he said it's a superstition and suggested that the Congress was in both the Centre and Karnataka in 1967.
- No party in Karnataka has won a second successive term in office since 1985 when the Janata Dal under Ramakrishna Hegde had retained power.
- Polling was held in 222 constituencies of the 224 -member Assembly as election has been countermanded in Jayanagara following the death of BJP candidate and sitting MLA B N Vijaykumar and in Rajrajeshwari Nagar constituency following the fake voter ID card row.