Karnataka will go to polls in two phases on April 26 and May 7 for the general elections. The State has 28 constituencies, five of which are reserved constituencies for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled Tribes. This year’s general elections are spread over seven phases from April 19 to June 1 to elect the 18th Lok Sabha.
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Karnataka helped the Bharatiya Janata Party gain a foothold in the South, when the party won 25 seats in 2019. The Congress won one seat (Bangalore Rural), the Janata Dal (Secular) won from Hassan and an independent candidate won from Mandya. In 2019, the BJP achieved the highest vote share since 2004 in the State at 51.38%, up from 2004’s vote share of 34.8%.
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The southern constituency Mandya recorded the highest polling percentage at 80.59%. Bangalore South recorded the lowest polling percentage at 53.7%, followed by Bangalore Central, Bangalore North, Raichur and Gulbarga constituencies.
Looking at the absolute number of voters who came to register their vote, Bangalore Rural recorded the most (16,22,624) while Bijapur constituency had the least number of voters at 11,12,493.
Anantkumar Hegde from the BJP won by the largest margin of votes (4,79,649) in Uttara Kannada. V. Srinivas Prasad also from the BJP won by the smallest margin (1,817) in Chamarajanagar.
Among the candidates, 13 are incumbents nominated again for this election. This includes former Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje in Bangalore North and incumbent Member of Parliament Tejasvi Surya in Bangalore South.
Some prominent candidates include former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy contesting from Mandya on a JD(S) ticket and former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar from Belgaum on a BJP ticket. For this election, the BJP and JD(S) have formed an alliance against the Congress.