Single phase polling in Karnataka April 17

Karnataka will vote April 17 in the 16th general elections to elect lawmakers from 28 parliamentary constituencies of the state.

"Polling will be conducted in single phase unlike in two or three phases in the past parliamentary elections," state chief electoral officer A.K. Jha told reporters here.

Decision to hold single phase polling was based on the successful conduct of the election in the state to the 224 legislative assembly segments on a single day (May 5, 2013).

"The state has 4,46,43,877 voters registered till Jan 31, with 2,27,78,644 males and 2,18,65,233 female, accounting for about 70 of the population and the gender ratio is 960:1,000," Jha said hours after the Election Commission announced in New Delhi the nine-phase polling across the country.

Number of voters in the 18-19 years segment across the state is 840,786.

Noting that the number of voters had increased by over 3.8 million from the 2009 general elections when it was 4,17,90,939, Jha said the total electorate number was expected to go up as eligible voters above 18 years could register up to March 16.

"As announced by the Chief Election Commissioner (V.S. Sampath), we are holding a special camp March 9 in all the 54,261 polling booths across the 28 Lok Sabha seats to enable citizens who have not yet registered as voters to enroll at their respective civic wards," he said.

Once the elections are notified March 19, candidates can file their nominations from that day till March 26.

"Scrutiny will be March 27 and withdrawal March 29. Campaigning will conclude April 15 and voting will take place April 17 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.," Jha said.

Counting, however, will be taken up May 16 as in the rest of the country.