Karnataka sees record 73% turnout in assembly elections; Bengaluru a letdown

BENGALURU: Karnataka saw a record turnout of 73% in the assembly elections on Wednesday, 2% higher than the voting percentage of 2018 (71.1%). The results for the 224 seats will be declared on Saturday (May 13).
According to the figures released late night by the Election Commission, the turnout in Karnataka reached 73%, excluding postal ballots till 9pm. Women and young voters are believed to have exercised their franchise in large numbers on Wednesday.
Not unexpectedly, Bengaluru city continued to disappoint, with Bengaluru Urban polling only 54.8%, lower than the 56% it polled in 2018. While Yeshwantpur assembly seat saw highest turnout with 63.7% voting, in CV Raman Nagar, just over 47% of eligible voters turned up to vote. Among the districts, Ramanagara in Old Mysuru region recorded the highest turnout of 84%, while the lowest polling was in Bengaluru at 54.8%, officials said.
In a bid to check urban apathy among voters, the Election Commission had decided to hold the poll in the middle of the week to prevent people from going on vacation by clubbing the poll-day holiday with the weekend.
Repoll unlikely in any of 58,545 polling stations, says EC
It ran an extensive campaign to encourage people to come out and vote. The weather didn’t play spoilsport either. But nothing, it seems, spurred the Bengalurean to step out to vote.
The electoral fates of several top guns — including CM Basavaraj Bommai, Congress veterans Siddaramaiahand DK Shivakumar, former CM of JD(S) HD Kumaraswamy, former CM Jagadish Shettar (Hubballi-Dharwad Central) and former deputy CM Laxman Savadi (Athani) who recently joined Congress after quitting BJP — have been sealed in the ballot boxes.
Polling was held for all 224 seats with reports of minor clashes and skirmishes in different parts of the state. In Vijayapura district, a mob destroyed EVMs (electronic voting machines) and VVPATs (voter-verifiable paper audit trails), manhandled an official, and damaged a vehicle carrying standby EVMs. Police said villagers of Masabinal wrongly believed that the officials were changing the EVMs and VVPATs to rig results. Police arrested 23 people over the incident.The EC said polling was largely peaceful barring this incident and no repoll indicated in any of the 58,545 polling stations. Ironically, polling booths became places of both death and birth as a 49-year-old died of cardiac arrest in Hassan and a baby girl was born in Ballari. Several pairs of brides and bridegrooms dropped by to vote before or after their nuptials.