72.13% voting recorded in Karnataka polls

The total polling percentage in Karnataka Elections is 72.13 per cent, said Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar on Sunday.

The Election Commission of India on Saturday had said that so far the voter turnout was 70 percent, compared to 71.4 percent in 2013 elections in Karnataka.

Addressing a press conference here, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha claimed that the figure was likely to increase, as polling was still underway in some areas.

The voting for 222 assembly constituencies began at 7 a.m. at 58,546 polling stations on Saturday and was scheduled to conclude at 6 p.m.

The election in two constituencies, Jayanagar and Rajarajeshwari Nagar, both in Bengaluru was postponed earlier.

In a bid to curb the distribution of cash, liquor and other items to swing electoral process, the Election Commission had deployed three flying squads in every constituency, 154 general observers, 136 expenditure observers, 34 police observers, 10,000 micro observers, 3.2 lakh polling personnel and members of the Central police forces in all polling stations.

As per available data, the Election Commissiom said an 'alarming' Rs.186 worth of cash, liquor and other items had been seized from the state as of today, which, it said, was more than eight times the seizures made in the last assembly election.

However, the election-governing body noted that a marginal percentage of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) failures were reported.

A total of 2,654 candidates, including 216 women candidates were in the fray for Assembly Elections this year.

While Belagavi district had the highest number of voters (37,23,585), Kodagu district had the lowest voter share (4,33,846).