Polling in South Bengaluru's Jayanagar Assembly seat, which was countermanded due to the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and MLA B N Vijaya Kumar, is currently underway.
The BJP has nominated Kumar's younger brother, B N Prahlad, as its candidate, while Congress has fielded former Karnataka home minister Ramalinga Reddy's daughter Sowmya Reddy.
The Janata Dal - Secular (JD-S) had fielded Kalegowda but later withdrawn his candidature to support the Congress nominee.
In all, 19 candidates, including nine Independents, are in the fray. Nayeema Khanum of the Praja Raita Raajya Paksha is the only other woman candidate contesting in this election.
According to a June 9 report, polling was scheduled to be held from 7 am to 6 pm across 216 polling booths on Monday. There are a total of 312,252 registered voters in the Assembly segment.
The Congress, which won from the RR Nagar Assembly segment on May 31, hopes to wrest the Jayanagar seat from the BJP and take its Karnataka Assembly tally to 79.
Though the party had won 78 seats in the May 12 state election, the death of its re-elected legislator Siddu Bhimappa Nyamgoud from Jamakhandi on May 28 brrought its Vidhan Soudha strength back to the same level despite the RR Nagar bypoll win.
With agency inputs