Voting begins in Karnataka for Assembly polls

BENGALURU: Voting began in Karnataka at 7 am on Wednesday to elect members for the 224-strong Legislative Assembly. Voters, including senior citizens, queued up at some polling right from 6.30 am. The polling process will go on till 6 pm. The counting of votes will be held on May 13 and the majority mark to form the new government is 113 seats.

The BJP, which is facing an air of anti-incumbency factor, is eyeing a second term in the state and has exuded confidence in retaining power with a full majority by winning 135 seats. The Congress too is hoping to make a comeback and its leaders have been stressing that the party will win 150 seats.

There are a total of 2,615 candidates in the fray. Polling is being held across 58,545 polling stations including auxiliary polling stations. A total of 42,48,028 new voters have registered to vote for the Assembly elections.

As many as 5.3 crore general voters will cast their vote today in 58,545 polling stations in 37,777 locations. Of them, 11,71,558 are young voters and 12,15,920 are 80+ senior citizen voters. There are also 5,71,281 PwD voters. Around 4,00,000 polling personnel are engaged in poll processes.