20.65 per cent voting recorded till 11 AM in Karnataka
An estimated 20.65 per cent voter turnout has been registered till 11 AM in 14 Lok Sabha constituencies of Karnataka, where polls are being held in the second phase Tuesday.
The highest turnout was recorded in Shimogga with 24.58 per cent and the lowest in Bidar with 17.95 per cent till 11 AM, poll officials said.
Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, UnionMinisters and BJP candidates from Bijapur and Uttara Kannada-Ramesh Jigajinagi and Ananth Kumar Hegde, respectively, and state Congress Working President and candidate from Bidar Eshwar Khandre were among those who cast their vote.
Earlier in the day, BJP state President and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa cast his vote along with familymembers at Shikaripura in Shimogga, where his son B Y Raghavendra, a sitting MP is pitted against former Chief Minister S Bangarappa's son Madhu from JD(S). Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, who is taking on BJP's Umesh Jadhav, also cast his vote in Gulbarga.
This election is said to be tough for Kharge, a nine-time MLA and two-term Lok Sabha member who has never tasted electoral defeat, as several senior leaders of Congresslike BaburaoChinchansur, Malka Reddy and Malikayya Guttedar, from the region quit the party and joined BJP.
Several prominent Lingayat seers also cast their votes on Tuesday. BJP that has considerable presence in the region aims to improve its tally banking on the "Modi wave" and support of dominant Lingayat community, considered as its vote base. For the ruling Congress-JD(S) alliance, it is a high stake battle, as their performance in this polls is likely to have its bearing on the coalition government in the state.
With Lingayat votes said to be key in this polls, asthe community has considerable presence in most of the constituencies, BJP is seen to be trying to further consolidate their votes in its favour. The BJP has been accusing the Congress of trying to "divide" the community for political gains, pointing at the grand old party's support for demand to accord religious minority status to Lingayats.
The then Siddaramaiah government's decision to recommend the religious minority tag to Lingayat community is said to be one of the reasons for the party's debacle in the May 2018 assembly polls. It remains to be seen whether it would once again help the BJP that is also targeting the government on the alleged dissidence within by calling it "turbulent government".
Among prominent contestants in the second phaseare Mallikarjun Kharge (Gulbarga), Union Ministers Ananth Kumar Hegde (Uttara Kannada) and Ramesh Jigajinagi (Bijapur).
Voting began at 7 AM in 28,022 polling stations thatare mostly in the northern belt of the state, covering theentire Hyderabad-Karnataka and Mumbai-Karnataka regions, acouple of central districts and coastal Uttara Kannada. As many as 2,43,03,279 voters are eligible to choose from among 237 candidates in the fray in the second phase. Among the 237 candidates, 227 are men and 10 women.
Belgaum with 57 has the maximum number of candidates, whileRaichur with five has the lowest in the second as well as the first phases. Of the 14 constituencies goingto polls in the second phase, BJP is contesting for all the seats while Congress and JD(S), who have an alliance, have fielded their candidates in 12 and 2 constituencies respectively as per the seat sharing arrangement.
The Congress currently has its hold on only 4 out of 14 seats - Chikkodi, Gulbarga, Bellary, Raichur- while the BJP has its sitting MPs in 10 seats.
The 14 constituencies in southern part of the state covering old Mysuru region and couple of coastal districts hadgone to polls on April 18, recording an overall voter turnout of 68.81 per cent.
