‘Appeal to people to vote and participate in this festival of democracy’: Basavaraj Bommai

HAVERI: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and BJP candidate from Haveri-Gadag parliamentary seat, Basavaraj Bommai, cast his vote at a polling booth here for the third phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024 on Tuesday.

He appealed to people to come out and vote and participate in this festival of democracy. “I appeal to people to come out and vote and participate in this festival of democracy. At present, I won’t be able to predict how many seats we will win in Karnataka”, Basavaraj Bommai said.

Bommai is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Haveri-Gadag and is up against Congress candidate Anandswamy Gaddadevarmath here. BJP’s Shivakumar Udasi won this seat in 2019.

The BJP has been winning the seat since 2009. With its sitting MP Shivakumar Udasi not contesting, the party has fielded a formidable candidate in Basavaraj Bommai who was Chief Minister of the BJP government which lost to Congress in the 2023 Assembly polls.

Haveri district is in the centre of Karnataka with equal distance from Bidar in the far north to Kollegal in the far south. It is also known as the gateway district to the northern districts of Karnataka.

Basavaraj Bommai, a two-time MLC and four-time MLA, is a key face of BJP in the state. He was Chief Minister from July 2021 to May 2023 and has been talking to the people about the welfare initiatives during his term.

Haveri has eight legislative Assembly segments — Shirahatti, Gadag, Ron, Hangal, Haveri, Byadgi, Hirekerur, and Ranibennur. In 2019, BJP’s Shivakumar Udasi retained the seat and got 6,83,660 votes. Congress’ D R Patil secured 5,42,778 votes while BSP’s Ayubkhan A Pathan came third with 7,479 votes.

Polling was conducted on April 26 in 14 parliamentary constituencies of Karnataka during the second phase of the Lok Sabha election. The remaining seats have gone to polls in the third phase today.

The polling is going on in 93 Lok Sabha seats across 12 states and Union Territories in the third phase of the general election today. The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4).

In this phase, more than 1,300 candidates, including around 120 women, are in the fray. A total of 17.24 crore voters are eligible to cast their franchise in this phase at 1.85 lakh polling stations. In the 2019 general election, the BJP won 72 of the 93 seats that go to the polls today. (ANI)