Karnataka Election Live: Voting Concludes With 65.69 Per Cent Voter Turnout Logged Till 5 PM
Karnataka Election 2023 Live: Polling is underway in Karnataka after days of high-octane campaigning by major political parties. Follow Live Updates here.
Background
Karnataka Election 2023 Live: Voting is underway in Karnataka days after aggressive campaigning by the BJP, Congress and the JD(S). The result of the election will be declared on May 13. The Karnataka election campaign came to an end on Monday (May 8). Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Former Congress General Secretary Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi have all campaigned in the state. Apart from national political leaders, Karnataka saw campaigning from various state chief ministers such as Assam's Himanta Biswa Sarma, Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath, and Madhya Pradesh's Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
PM HELD 19 RALLIES
Prime Minister Narendra Modi alone held 19 election rallies and 6 roadshows across Karnataka during the campaigning season. PM Modi also held a shorter roadshow on Sunday, on a different route the day after a three-hour roadshow in Bengaluru. With only two days until the election, the party had gone all-in on leveraging the PM for one last push to retain power in what is expected to be a closely contested election.
Apart from the prime minister, BJP President JP Nadda addressed 10 public rallies and 16 roadshows, while Amit Shah attended 16 gatherings and 15 roadshows. Union Minister Smriti Irani attended 17 meetings and two roadshows, Rajnath Singh attended four meetings, Nitin Gadkari three, and Nirmala Sitharaman addressed eight election gatherings.
A total of 5,31,33,054 electors are eligible to cast their votes in 58,545 polling stations across the state, where 2,615 candidates are in the fray.
Among the electors, 2,67,28,053 are male, 2,64,00,074 female and 4,927 "others", while among the candidates 2,430 are male, 184 female and one from the third gender.
As many as 11,71,558 are young voters, while 5,71,281 are persons with disabilities (PWDs) and 12,15,920 are aged above 80. While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress is seeking to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Also what needs to be watched out for, is whether former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular), will emerge as a "kingmaker" by holding the key for government formation, in the event of a hung verdict, as it has done in the past. "A government with full majority" seemed to be the favourite slogan for the leaders of all the political parties during campaigning, as they stressed on getting a clear mandate to form a strong and stable government in the state, unlike what happened after the 2018 polls.
A total of 75,603 Ballot Units (BU), 70,300 Control Units (CU) and 76,202 voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) are slated to be used during voting.
Congress Leader Gourav Vallabh Says 'Planning Implementations Of 5 Guarantees Promised'
A day ahead of Karnataka Assembly Elections results, Congress Leader Gourav Vallabh said: "We are more concerned about the five guarantees, we are discussing about the structure of their implementation".
[tw]https://twitter.com/PTI_News/status/1656980255058345987[/tw]
'Because Of Our Manifesto, Congress Is Guaranteed To Win': Jairam Ramesh
Congress party General Secretary in-charge Communications Jairam Ramesh said: "During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we were there for 27 days in Karnataka and visited 7 districts. We don’t have any doubt. We will get majority votes. We have promised 5 guarantees in our manifesto, and because of these guarantees Congress is guaranteed to win".
#WATCH | #KarnatakaElections | "During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, we were there for 27 days in Karnataka and visited 7 districts. We don’t have any doubt. We will get majority votes. We have promised 5 guarantees in our manifesto, and because of these guarantees Congress is… pic.twitter.com/QzbWRAmEXm
— ANI (@ANI) May 12, 2023
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