Voting picks up in Karnataka Lok Sabha bypoll

Mar 18, 2012 |

IANS

Bengaluru

Tags:

The bypoll to Karnataka's Udupi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha seat saw brisk voting after a dull start Sunday, with around 45 per cent of 1.24 million voters casting their ballots in the first six hours, an official said.

Polling began at 8 a.m. "Polling is brisk and peaceful," a spokesperson for the state election office told reporters in Bangalore.

Retaining the seat is critical for the survival of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka.

The bypoll has been caused by BJP's D.V. Sadananda Gowda vacating the seat after becoming chief minister in August last year, succeeding scam-hit B.S. Yeddyurappa.

The fight is between BJP's youth leader V. Sunil Kumar and K. Jayaprakash Hegde of the Congress, though Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) also has its candidate S.L. Bhoje Gowda, a local leader, in the fray.

Around 7,000 police personnel are on duty to ensure smooth polling in the constituency spread over Udupi and Chikmagalur districts, said state chief electoral office C.S. Suranjan.

Votes will be counted on March 21.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/135019" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b3fff1692e4be7d0cae9ccfd807b08ce" value="form-b3fff1692e4be7d0cae9ccfd807b08ce" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85765448" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>