Karnataka polls: Voters break records with 72% turnout; highest since 1952

The 72.13 per cent voter turnout in the Karnataka Assembly elections has broken all records and is the highest since the 1952 state polls, Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar said on Sunday. Women and young voters exercised their franchise in large numbers on Saturday, he told PTI.

“The voter turnout in the polls broke all records last night. By midnight, the figures showed that it was 72.13 per cent,” he told PTI here.

The turnout was the highest-ever in Karnataka since the 1952 Assembly elections, he said. Kumar said the 2013 Assembly polls had recorded a turnout of 71.45 per cent, which was the highest in the last six Assembly elections. It was 65 per cent in 2008 and 2004, 69 per cent in the 1989 and 1994 and 69 per cent in the 1990 elections, he said.

To a question on seizures in the run up to the polls, he said Rs 940 million in cash, besides liquor worth Rs 247 million and other items such as clothes, vehicles and electronic gadgets worth Rs 660 million had been seized.

Kumar said re-election would take place in a polling station at Lottegollahalli in Hebbal constituency here since an electronic voting machine developed a glitch.

The election for the Jayanagara seat in Bengaluru was countermanded following the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and sitting MLA BN Vijaykumar on May 4.

The Election Commission has deferred the polls for the Rajarajeswari Nagar seat to May 28 after a massive row erupted over a large number of voter ID cards being found in a Bengaluru apartment.