Polling for the 224-member Karnataka Assembly will take place on May 10 and the votes counted on May 13.
In 2018, a hung Assembly was elected with the BJP winning 104 seats, the Congress 80 and the Janata Dal Secular 37. The Congress and the JDS eventually formed a coalition government which lasted for 14 months, and was replaced by the BJP which engineered defections from these parties. B.S. Yediyurappa was made chief minister but was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai in 2021.
Declaring the polls on Wednesday, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar responded to queries on doubts raised by the Opposition on the integrity of EVMs. Asked whether the EC would review the working of EVMs, Kumar replied: “No. It is perfect, sound, proved, challenged in courts, for which orders are there (upholding their integrity)…. The results are the proof.”
The EC has cast an elaborate net to seize potential bribes for voters with inventories of liquor stocks and tracking of online transactions and movement of goods. ATM vans have been asked not to operate at night as there were suspicions of these being used to move illicit cash. Seizures worth Rs 80 crore have been made even before the polls were declared in BJP-ruled Karnataka.
"We have told them (officers) that they don’t need to wait for the model code (to come into force). Sections of the IPC are sufficient to take action,” Kumar added.
In recent Assembly polls in five states, cumulative seizures were 23 times more than what were made five years ago.
The EC highlighted the 32.5 per cent rise in the enrolment of voters above the age of 80 in Karnataka, and that of the disabled by 158 per cent since 2018.
Kumar said the sharp increase in enrolment of the disabled owed to the use of the database of scholarships given to such people by the state’s social justice department. These voters can avail themselves of the facility to vote at home under the supervision of officials and polling agents.
All eligible voters from the Jenu Kuruba and Koraga tribes, which are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, have been enrolled.