New Delhi: The Election Commission has announced that voting to elect MLAs to the Karnataka assembly will take place on May 10 and the counting will take place on May 13.
The announcement means the model code of conduct will now be in place across the state.
Four days before the announcement of the polls, the government under Basavaraj Bommai controversially removed the 4% reservation that Muslims had so far had in the state and divided the quota equally between the state’s powerful caste groups – Lingayats and Vokkaligas – taking their respective quotas to 5% and 7%. Muslims were moved to the EWS (economically weaker sections) category which has a total of 10% and includes groups like the Jains and Brahmins.
The current term for the Karnataka assembly will expire on May 24 this year.
The EC has said in its press note that the total number of electors from the state this time will be 5,24,11,557.
There have already been reports on minority electors’ names going missing from the final rolls and even though the EC had taken formal cognisance of this, many have claimed their names have since not found their way to the lists.
The state will have 58,282 polling stations.
As many as 2400 ‘static surveillance teams’ will be mobilised to keep “strict vigil,” the EC has claimed.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will seek re-election amidst what The Wire‘s analyst B.S. Arun has reported is a brewing factional war within the party’s ranks.
BJP’s national general secretary and MLA from Chikkamagaluru, C.T. Ravi’s has spoken out against B.Y. Vijayendra, state general secretary of the party and the son of former CM and Lingayat strongman B.S. Yediyurappa, whose influence remains a factor that the party’s central leadership is keen to handle with care.
The EC has also announced that voting and counting will take place on the same date in the parliamentary constituency of Jalandhar in Punjab and the assembly constituencies of Jharsuguda in Odisha, Chhanbey and Suar in Uttar Pradesh and Sohiong in Meghalaya.