Polling peaceful in Mysuru; 68% voter turnout recorded

MYSURU: The voting to the South Graduates’ constituency was brisk on Monday.
The voter turnout is higher this time when compared to 2016 election thanks to high-voltage campaigns by the major political parties. As per the the preliminary data, 67.9% of the eligible voters cast their vote in Mysuru.
The voting was held without any glitches and no unlawful incidents were reported. At a polling centre in the city, a voter cast a challenge vote after it was found that someone else had already cast vote in his name. However, officials made it clear that they yet to receive any report in this regard.
The voting started at 8 am across the 150 polling booths spread over the Mysuru, Hassan, Chamarajanagar, and Mandya districts. Nearly 8.1% of voters of the total of 1,41,964 registered voters cast their votes in the first two hours. The early birds were senior citizens and the loyal party cadets. Six years ago, just 6.36% voters had cast their votes within two hours.
First among the leaders who cast their votes was former minister C Puttaranga Shetty, at Yelandur taluk office. He expressed his displeasure over the poor visibility of the pen given to mark the vote.
In Mysuru city, prominent personalities who cast their votes included Suttur seer Shri Shivaratri Deshikendra seer, MLA SA Ramadas, MLC Marithibbegowda of JD(S), MP Pratap Simha. JDS candidate HK Ramu and BJP candidate MY Ravishankar exercised their right in the city while Congress candidate Madhu G Madegowda cast his vote in Maddur, his home turf.
In Mysuru, leaders from all the parties criss-crossed the district as a last minute effort to win the hearts of the voters. In Mysuru, Congress candidate Madhu Madegowda visited a BJP booth centre seeking votes. The voting was brisk even in the taluk headquarters. Long queues were witnessed in most of the places since early morning.
The situation was not different in Hassan where young leaders including MP, JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna, Preetham J Gowda of BJP cast their votes.
In Mandya, where BJP is trying to make inroads, the voters turned up in large numbers. Even though the voting was moderate till 12 noon, it was brisk in the evening time. DC Aswathi S, and SP Yatish N visited several polling centres across the district and reviewed the situation.
In 2016, out of 1,20,445 voters, a total of 52,800 had exercised their right. The total voting percentage was 43.8%. Chamarajanagar recorded 55.23% voting percentage, Mandya (50.62%), Hassan (40.85%), and Mysuru 39.63%.
The votes will be counted on Wednesday.