Ready to sacrifice CM post for Dalit: Siddaramaiah

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that he is ready to sacrifice his chief ministerial post for a Dalit.

"I am ready to sacrifice Chief Minister's post for a Dalit," Tv9 Kannada reported.

Karnataka Congress has a strong presence of Dalit leaders, foremost among whom are Mallikarjun Kharge and G Parameshwara.

On a related note, the Karnataka Assembly has 224 seats and a party or an alliance needs 113-seats to form the government.

The Assembly polls, which began at 7 a.m. yesterday at 58,546 polling stations concluded at 7 p.m. The Election Commission (EC) said that voter turnout recorded was 70 percent, compared to 71.4 percent in 2013 elections in Karnataka.

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

India Today-Axis My India exit poll has predicted that Congress is likely to win 106-118 seats with 39 percent vote share and will be the single-largest party in Karnataka. It has said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win around 79-92 seats, JD (S) and its allies will bag 22-30 seats and 1-4 seats will go into the Independents' kitty.

ABP C-Voter exit poll has predicted 101-113 seats for BJP, claiming that the saffron party is likely to reach the 'magic figure' of 113 seats.

It predicts 82 to 94 seats for Congress, while JD(S) and others will get 18-31 seats and 1 to 8 seats respectively.

Republic TV-Jan ki Baat exit poll has said that the BJP is likely to emerge as the single largest party with 95-114 seats. It has given 73-82 seats to Congress, 32-43 seats to JD(S) and 2-3 seats to others.

According to Times Now-VMR exit poll, the Congress is likely to be the single largest party with 90-103 seats, the BJP second largest party with 80-93 seats. It said that JD (S) will win 30-39 seats and others 2-4 seats.

NDTV's Exit Poll said BJP will be single largest party with 98 seats, Congress second largest party with 88 seats, and JD (S) will be a Kingmaker with 33 seats.

NewsX-CNX exit poll has claimed that the BJP is set to be elected as the single largest party in the state, with close to 102-110 seats, followed by the Congress with 72-78 seats and JDS with 35-39 seats.

The Congress had won 122 seats and the BJP 40 seats in the last Karnataka Assembly election in 2013.