Voting underway in Karnataka civic polls

Moderate polling is underway since for the election to 102 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across Karnataka, a poll official said on Friday.

Polling started at 7 a.m. amid tight security, the official added.

About 40,000 security personnel have been deployed in cities and towns to maintain law and order across the state where voting will continue till 5 p.m.

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are being used in the poll.

Voting is being held in 2,529 wards spread over 29 city municipalities, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats and in 135 wards of the three city corporations.

In all, 8,340 candidates, including 2,306 from the Congress, 2,203 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 1,397 from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) are in the fray for the ULBs, while 814 are contesting in the city corporations, including 135 from Congress, 130 from BJP and 129 from JD-S.

A total of 36 lakh voters are registered for exercising franchise in the ULB wards and 13.33 lakh in the three towns of Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru.

Counting of votes will be taken up on September 3 and most of the results are expected by night or early the next day.

Though the civic election was earlier scheduled to be held in 105 ULBs, it has been postponed in three of them -- Somwarpet, Virajpet and Kushalnagar due to heavy rains and flash floods early in August in the Kodagu district, about 270km from here.

In the 2013 ULB elections held in 4,976 seats, the Congress had won 1,960 seats, while BJP and JD-S had won 905 seats each, the Independents bagged the remaining 1,206 seats.

--IANS

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