Karnataka Polls: 65.69 percent voter turnout till 5 pm

Bengaluru: Voting came to an end for the Karnataka Assembly elections on Wednesday at 6 pm with data showing a voter turnout of 65.69 per cent at 5 pm.

With just an hour left for voting to close for the polls to the 224-member Assembly, Ramanagara recorded the highest turnout of 78.22 per cent, while the lowest polling was from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) South limits (parts of Bengaluru city) at 48.63 per cent, election officials said.

The state is mainly witnessing a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular).

A total of 5.31 crore electors are eligible to cast their vote in 58,545 polling stations across the state, where 2,615 candidates are in the fray.

Celebrity voters

Prominent among those who voted today include former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and former Chief Ministers B S Yediyurappa and D V Sadananda Gowda (both BJP) and Siddaramaiah and Jagadish Shettar (both Congress) and IT industry veteran N R Narayana Murthy and wife Sudha Murty.

Actors Yash, Prakash Raju also casted their vote.

Karnataka recorded a voter turnout of 72.36 per cent in the 2018 Assembly polls.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who is seeking re-election from Shiggaon in Haveri district for a fourth consecutive term, said he would win with a record margin. "So is the BJP," he added, "which is going to win with a record number of seats." Bommai said the party would get a "comfortable majority".

First time and elderly come out to vote

First-time voters and the elderly stole the show as they were seen participating in the voting process enthusiastically in many segments. According to Election Commission (EC) officials, as many as 11.71 lakh were eligible to exercise their franchise for the first time..

Of the total eligible voters, 16,914 are centenarians and 12.16 lakh above the age of 80.

Theme-based and ethnic polling booths -- 737 in all across the State -- added a lot of colour to the exercise. The excitement among the first time voters was palpable. "I am very happy to vote. This is my right", was their "standard" comment.

Voting on a weekday

According to Election Commission (EC) officials, as many as 11.71 lakh were eligible to exercise their franchise for the first time..

Of the total eligible voters, 16,914 are centenarians and 12.16 lakh above the age of 80. Theme-based and ethnic polling booths -- 737 in all across the State -- added a lot of colour to the exercise.

The excitement among the first time voters was palpable. "I am very happy to vote. This is my right", was their "standard" comment.

In a bid to check apathy among voters, the EC had come up with an out-of-the-box idea by holding the poll in the middle of the week to prevent people planning an outing by clubbing the poll-day holiday with the weekend break.

"Date of the poll has been kept on a Wednesday. Had it been on a Monday, it would have come with a holiday of Saturday and Sunday. And had it been on a Tuesday, take a day's off and we can go out ... Wednesday is a little difficult," an EC official said.

To draw people to use their voting rights, the EC took many initiatives such as theme based and ethnic polling booths, and pink booths exclusively operated by women.

According to the EC, it has set up 996 all women managed polling booths, 239 booths managed by people with disabilities and 286 managed by youth.

This was the first state-wide assembly election where the Vote-From-Home option was given for those elderly people who completed 80 years and were unable to reach the polling station, according to an election officer.

100-year-old casts her vote

Boramma, a centenarian from Melagodu in Holenarasipur Taulk of Hassan district, however, chose to walk to the polling booth with a stick for support holding the hand of her son.

After casting her vote, Boramma said, “I have completed 100 years. I am happy to vote. Everyone should vote and may good happen to everyone. I have been voting for the past 60 years. I never ever missed a single election without voting".

Many elderly voters reached the polling booths on wheel-chairs like Nagalakshmi, 84, who cast her vote at Malleshwaram in Bengaluru.

Bride and bridegroom vote

Sahil Dhariwal, 26, preferred casting his vote ahead of his marriage in Bengaluru.

“I am voting for the first time. Last time I could not vote because of certain reasons. This time I made a point not to miss this opportunity,” Dhariwal said. At Periyapatna in Mysuru district, a couple queued up for voting soon after they tied the nuptial knot.

Lambani tribe dress for polling staff

A theme based polling station at Kalaghatagi constituency in Dharwad district caught the attention with the entire polling staff wearing colourful attire of nomadic tribe Lambani.

Right to vote

Transgenders too did not fall behind and voted in large numbers an election commission official said.

Reports of violence in areas

Violence was reported in some areas. Villagers of Masabinal in Vijayapura district stopped a poll duty vehicle carrying electronic voting machines (EVMs), manhandled an officer and damaged some control and ballot units following which 23 persons were arrested, the Election Commission said.

The villagers stopped a sector officer's vehicle, which was carrying reserved EVMs, and damaged two control and ballot units each and three VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines, the EC said in a statement.

"A sector officer was manhandled, 23 people arrested," the EC said, adding that top district officials rushed to the village, which comes under Basavana Bagewadi Assembly segment.

Police sources said the villagers' "action" came after "rumours" that officials were "changing" the EVMs and VVPATs.

Meanwhile, in Padmanabhanagar constituency here, some youth armed with sticks attacked their political rivals in a polling booth at Papaiah Garden. They went on a rampage in which a few women standing in queue to vote were injured, the sources said.

In another incident at Sanjeevarayanakote in Ballari district, some Congress and BJP workers came to blows.

Inputs from PTI