Bengaluru: The Shivamogga, Mandya and Ballari Lok Sabha constituencies and the Ramanagara and Jamakhandi Assembly constituencies went to the polls on November 3. Voting began at 7 AM and concluded at 6 PM. The first few hours of the day saw a rather low turnout, however, things started to pick up during the day. Around 66 per cent of the 54.5 lakh electorate voted in the by-elections across Karnataka, a poll official said. Counting of votes will be held on November 6.
“Polling picked up post-noon and was moderate to heavy towards the end, with 66 per cent average voting in three Lok Sabha and two assembly segments in the state,” an Election Commission (EC) official told IANS here and added that the voting was mostly peaceful except for stray incidents of EVM (electronic voting machine) malfunctioning and names of voters missing in a few polling stations in all the segments.
The Shivamogga Lok Sabha constituency witnessed a peaceful polling day and had a moderate voter turnout of 65.82 percent by the end. The conditions, however, were not the same for the other Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies.
Ballari Lok Sabha by-polls witnessed an average voter turnout of 63.85 percent, while the Mandya Lok Sabha vote share showed a drastic down-trend with an unremarkable 53.64 percent.
The Assembly by-polls, on the other hand, showed a seemingly high percentage of voter turnout. The Ramanagara Assembly by-polls observed the highest number of votes cast, at 81.58 percent and the Jamakhandi Assembly by-polls showed a decent turnout of 73.71 percent. Both the Assembly constituencies observed an average of 85 percent voter turnout.
However, according to the EC official, the final polling percentage in each constituency will be known by late night after receiving the complete data.
In all, 31 candidates are in the fray, including five from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), three from Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and two from the Congress. 21 others are Independents or from regional outfits. The JD(S) and Congress have fielded joint candidates in all the by-polls to consolidate their votes. The JD(S) is contesting from Mandya, Shivamogga and Ramanagara and the Congress from Bellary and Jamakhandi.
Two women- Anitha, wife of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, and J Shantha, sister of BJP legislator B Sriramulu, are contesting in the Ramanagara and Bellary (reserved) seats. The sons of three former chief ministers were locked in a triangular contest from Shivamogga- B Y Raghavendra, son of BJP state unit president B S Yeddyurappa, who was the party’s first chief minister in the south from 2008 to 2011, Madhu Bangarappa, younger son of late Congress Chief Minister S Bangarappa (1990-92) and Mahima Patel, son of late Janata Dal-United (JD-U) Chief Minister J H Patel (1996-99).
L.R. Shivarame Gowda of the JD-S and Siddaramaiah of the BJP are the candidates in Mandya.
In Jamakhandi, the Congress fielded Anand Siddu, son of its senior leader Siddu Nyamagouda, whose sudden death in a road mishap on May 28 necessitated the by-poll. Srikant Kulkarni is the BJP candidate against Siddu.
In Bellary, the Congress fielded its state Legislative Council member V.S. Ugrappa against BJP’s Shantha, as both belong to the dominant Valmiki tribal community.
The BJP had to face a major setback as its nominee L Chandrashekar, withdrew from the contest in Ramanagara on Thursday, after resigning from the party and re-joining the Congress. The party was forced to ask the electorate to vote for the party and not the candidate, as a last-minute strategy.
According to political analysts, in Mandya, the Congress-JD(S) candidate Shivarame Gowda, will emerge victorious due to the Vokkaliga votes and the coalition factor. One of the senior JD(S) leaders has also opined that the by-poll results will set the tone for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019 as well as write a new narrative in state politics. Chief Minister Kumaraswamy also termed this election as the “semi-finals” before the Lok Sabha elections.
Meanwhile, the BJP is confident of winning the Shivamogga, Ballari and Jamakhandi by-polls. BJP state president and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has even predicted a humongous winning margin for his son and BJP’s Shivamogga Lok Sabha by-poll candidate B Y Raghavendra.
With inputs from IANS
