Goemkarponn Desk
BENGALURU: The Congress will form the government on its own in Karnataka as it is ahead in 117 seats, according to trends of the Karnataka election result. The BJP, on the other hand, is ahead in 75 seats. The JD(S) is ahead in 27 seats, the trends showed.
The Congress was striding forward with leads in 130 seats, while the BJP was ahead in 66 in Karnataka, according to Election Commission of India trends, as votes were counted on Saturday for an election widely seen as a litmus test for both parties ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls.
As the BJP is headed for a poll drubbing, the saffron outfit’s hold in south India is clearly on the wane. The DMK in Tamil Nadu, YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, BRS in Telangana, the CPM-led LDF in Kerala and now the Congress in Karnataka, days away from forming a new government, have managed to keep the BJP off the
political map in the south.
A party needs 113 seats to form the government in Karnataka.
BJP leader and CM Basavaraj Bommai, meanwhile, conceded defeat and said the result will be analysed as to know what went wrong for his party
Congress requested “winning candidates” to reach the Hilton Hotel in Bengaluru after receiving their certificates, according to CNN-News18 reports. A meeting of the newly elected MLAs is scheduled tomorrow, but the venue has not yet been finalised.
Counting of votes for the crucial Karnataka Assembly poll 2023 is began at 8 am, with the BJP confident of proving the exit poll results wrong, the Congress hoping to get more seats than the numbers projected for it and secure a comfortable majority and the JD(S) seeming to be ready to play the king maker role. Section 144 of CrPC was imposed in capital city of Karnataka, Bengaluru, where traffic restrictions have also been introduced for the counting day.
Section 144 will be imposed in the entire district from 6 am on Saturday to 12 am on Sunday. Liquor sale has also been reportedly banned in the Bengaluru police commissionerate region.
The magic number, the majority mark, that the parties are hoping to crack is 113 in the state with 224 assembly constituencies.
While the official numbers will come by late evening, a clear picture of whether it will be BJP, Congress or JD(S) is expected to be with us by mid-day.
The electoral fortunes of top leaders and key candidates like — Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, Congress heavyweights Siddaramaiah, DK Shivakumar, JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy and many others was sealed on Wednesday, May 10, when the state voted in 224 assembly constituencies in a single-phased assembly poll.
Siddaramaiah, DK Shivakumar, newsmaker Jagadish Shettar who switched from BJP after being denied a ticket, Laxman Savadi, Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge are some of Congress’s key candidates.
BJP has chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, BS Yediyurappa’s son Vijayendra Yediyurappa, CT Ravi and Ramesh Jarkiholi among its key candidates. HD Kumaraswamy, his son Nikhil Kumaraswamy are among the top faces in the JD(S)
In the 2018 Assembly polls, the BJP won 104 seats while the Congress secured victory in 80 seats.
The Congress gained 37 seats more than it had won in the 2018 polls. The BJP lost 29 seats less than the seats it secured in the previous election.
The counting began at 8 am in 36 centres across the state amid elaborate security arrangements in place, especially in and around the counting centres to avoid any untoward incidents.
The exit polls had predicted a victory for the Congress somewhere between 122 and 140 seats in Karnataka. The BJP, which ran a high-voltage campaign in the state, is projected to finish second somewhere between 62 and 80 seats, the survey showe…
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