Even as the campaign to the Legislative Council elections from South Graduates’ constituency ended on Tuesday, the stage is now set for the polling which will be held on June 9 in Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajnagar and Hassan districts.
The mustering and de-mustering process will be held at all taluk headquarters of the four districts coming under the constituency.
M.V. Ravishankar (BJP), H.N. Ravindra (Congress), K.T. Srikante Gowda (JD-S) and Vatal Nagaraj of Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha are among the candidates in the fray. Writer K.S. Bhagwan is contesting as an Independent. A total of 1,20,445 voters, including 83,171 men and 37,265 women, will exercise their franchise.
The highest number of voters — 56,075 — are in Mysuru district, followed by Mandya (31,769 voters), Hassan (23,769 voters) and Chamarajnagar (8,832 voters). There is a provision to exercise NOTA (None of the above) in these elections.
Regional Commissioner A.M. Kunjappa, who is the Returning Officer, told presspersons here on Tuesday that 130 polling booths have been set up in the constituency which includes 63 main polling booths and 67 auxiliary booths. Voters are supposed to bring their EPIC for casting their vote. If they don’t have EPIC, they can bring any of the following ID cards as proof — passport, driving licence, service ID card issued by the government or PSUs, passbooks with photos issued by banks or post office, PAN card, smart card issued by RGI under NPR, pension documents with photographs, health insurance scheme smart card, freedom fighters’ ID card with photograph, arms licences with photograph (issued till May 31, 2016), certificate of physical handicap with photograph and ex-servicemen CSD canteen card. Surprisingly, there is no mention of Aadhaar card as ID proof in the note issued during the regional commissioner’s press conference. Web casting arrangement has also been made in each taluk.
With Tuesday being the last date for campaigning, the former Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy, who is also the president of the State-unit of the JD(S), campaigned for party candidate K.T. Srikante Gowda. He campaigned at Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering here. He was accompanied by Deputy Chairman in Council Maritebbe Gowda and others. Top BJP leaders, including B.S. Yeddyurappa, president of the State-unit of the BJP, Union Ministers Ananth Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, have been campaigning for the party candidate M.V. Ravishnakar here over the past few days.
Senior Congress leaders also campaigned for party candidate Ravindra.
Seventeen candidates are in the fray to
the polls from
South Graduates’ constituency
