Polling got underway for electing seven candidates for the Legislative Council from the Legislative Assembly constituency on Friday.
Several independents, including Haladi Srinivas Shetty, cast his vote, as soon as the voting process commenced at 9 am. There are eight candidates in the fray.
All 225 MLAs are expected to exercise their franchise before 4 pm at the polling booth located on the first floor of the Vidhana Soudha. Counting would begin at 5 pm and results would be known by around 7 pm.
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Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has called a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party and issued a whip to all its members to vote for party candidates. The BJP legislature Party meet also held and leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar, and several senior party MLAs participated in the meeting. The JD S(S) legislature party meeting was held on Thursday.
The polling process is being video-graphed and carrying cell-phones to the polling booth has been prohibited.
Candidates in the fray for the biennial elections to the Council from the Legislative Assembly are: State youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad and former Kodagu ZP president Veena Achaiah, former KPCC chief AllamVeerabhadrappa and former minister R B Thimmapur (Congress), K V Narayanaswamy and S M Venkatapathy (both JD(S), and V Sommanna and Lehar Singh ( both BJP).
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A candidate required support of 29 MLAs to register the victory. As the ruling Congress with its strength of 123 members, excluding the Speaker, is sure of victory of all four candidates, the Opposition BJP and JD (S) are desperately looking for additional votes to secure the win of its second candidate in the Council.
In the 75-member Upper House, the ruling Congress has 29 members, while the principal Opposition has BJP 26 members.