All eyes on Karnataka election results; Cong, BJP, JDS on edge as counting of votes begins
Exit polls suggest this will be a close race - one that will see the Congress emerge as the single-largest party but not with enough to cross the 113-seat mark.
The battle for Karnataka began at 8 am with the Bharatiya Janata Party looking to retain control of the state in the face of (what exit polls believe will be) a strong challenge from the Congress in the first big election of 2023. Also in the fray is the Janata Dal (Secular) but ex-chief minister HD Kumaraswamy's party is not expected to win enough seats to challenge the BJP or the Congress.
Karnataka voted in a single phase Wednesday. The majority mark in the 224-member Assembly is 113. Exit polls suggest this will be a close race - one that will see the Congress emerge as the single-largest party but not, unfortunately, with enough to cross that all-important 113-seat mark.
READ | Follow Karnataka Election results LIVE here
On voting day Karnataka recorded a 73.19 per cent voter turnout, according to the state's Chief Electoral Officer. In the 2018 election Karnataka recorded a 72.44 per cent voter turnout.
Chikkaballapura district recorded the highest voting percentage with 85.56 per cent and the lowest of 52.33 per cent was in state capital Bengaluru's southern division, which is held by the BJP's M Krishnappa. Voting was 'largely peaceful', election officers said, although there was some violence.
In the 2018 election the BJP emerged as the single-largest party with 104 seats but were beaten to the post by the Congress and JDS, who won 80 and 37 seats, respectively. A Congress-JDS post-poll alliance kept the BJP out but a year later rebel MLAs caused the coalition government to fall.
What do the exit polls say?
The Congress is confident of a (very) good show; state unit boss DK Shivakumar, a chief minister aspirant, has predicted it will win over 140 seats. The good news for the opposition party is that exit polls largely agree they will do better than they did in 2018, when the party won 80 seats.
The bad news is that few of the exit polls give the Congress an outright majority; only India Today-My Axis India, Times Now-ETG and News24-Today's Chanakya predicting a minimum haul of or past 113.
The rest predict a hung Assembly but the Congress is still expected to beat the BJP; ABP News-CVoter, India TV-CNX and Zee News-Matrize all give them a minimum of over 100 seats.
READ | Exit polls: 'Advantage Cong', don't forget BJP, JDS lurks
At the other end of the spectrum are News Nation-CGS and Suvarna News-Jan Ki Baat, which predict an outright BJP win and a hung Assembly with an advantage to the saffron party, respectively.
In all of these polls the JDS is a distant third; its best predicted return is courtesy Zee News-Matrize and Republic TV-P-Marq, with the surveys giving them 25-33 and 24-32 seats, respectively.
JDS as 'kingmaker'
Much of the speculation on Friday was about the JDS and a possible post-poll alliance with either the BJP or the Congress. Kumaraswamy set the ball rolling (a day earlier) by referring to his party as the 'king' - an apparently clear indication he expects a coalition with the JDS to be the only viable path to power for the two larger parties. En route to Singapore yesterday he told the Deccan Herald his party would win 50 seats and that 'this time I will go with the party that agrees to fulfil my conditions'.
READ | 'Kingmaker' JDS ready to deal with Congress or BJP but…
Talk of a JDS open to talks was also fuelled by comments from JDS leader Tanveer Ahmed, who told news agency ANI and broadcaster NDTV a 'decision' - on whether to support the BJP or the Congress - had been made and that this decision would be announced at an appropriate time.
Ahmed's comments were vehemently denied by his party; state unit boss CM Ibrahim said his colleague was no longer a party spokesperson and described him harshly as 'nothing'.
READ | JDS state boss walks back 'decision taken' claim on alliance with Cong or BJP
Both the BJP and the Congress have dismissed any talk of a deal with the JDS. The Congress, in fact, went so far as to declare itself the winner even before votes are counted.
READ | 'BJP has accepted defeat': Cong' Randeep Surjewala on JDS deal talk
The importance of the Karnataka election
This is the first major election of the year (Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya voted in February) with Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana - where chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is eager to establish himself as a national force - to follow.
Also scheduled to vote is Mizoram.
These are widely seen as the second 'semi-final' to next year's Lok Sabha election; the first was last year and the BJP can claim to have won that after retaining control of Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The only upsets were in Himachal Pradesh (Congress beat BJP) and Punjab, where the Aam Aadmi Party secured a statement win over the Congress.
