The MLAs will exercise their voting rights using an open ballot system. The voting started at 9 am and will go on till 4 pm.
Published Feb 27, 2024 | 10:16 AM ⚊ Updated Feb 27, 2024 | 2:06 PM
The new Parliament building. (Creative Commons)
Voting for the four Rajya Sabha seats is underway in Karnataka on Tuesday, 27 February. The elections have gained significance following the BJP-JD(S) combine’s decision to field a fifth candidate.
Among those eligible to vote, Congress has 133 MLAs, the BJP has 66, and JD(S) has 19, while others, including independents, account for four. One more is the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
Of the four others, the Congress claims the support of two independents and Darshan Puttanaiah from Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha and is confident of winning three seats.
Interestingly, the fourth one — G Janardhana Reddy (of Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha), a former BJP minister, met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday, 26 February.
The MLAs will exercise their voting rights using an open ballot system. The voting started at 9 am and will go on till 4 pm. The counting will start from 5 pm.
These MLAs have to display their voting preference to the nominated polling agents.
ಮಾಜಿ ಸಚಿವರು, ಶಾಸಕರೂ ಆದ ಜನಾರ್ಧನ ರೆಡ್ಡಿಯವರು ಇಂದು ಮುಖ್ಯಮಂತ್ರಿ @siddaramaiah ಅವರನ್ನು ಭೇಟಿಯಾಗಿ ಮಾತುಕತೆ ನಡೆಸಿದರು.
ಡಿಸಿಎಂ @DKShivakumar ಮತ್ತು ಸಚಿವರಾದ @sstangadagi ಅವರು ಈ ವೇಳೆ ಉಪಸ್ಥಿತರಿದ್ದರು. pic.twitter.com/57GJTwB4DT— CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) February 26, 2024
The Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant following the retirement of four members—Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the BJP and GC Chandrashekhar, Syed Naseer Hussain and L Hanumanthaiah from the Congress.
The Congress, which is confident of winning three seats has fielded GC Chandrashekhar, Naseer Hussain and former union minister Ajay Maken.
The BJP has fielded Narayana Bhandage as also JD(S) candidate D Kupendra Reddy as the NDA candidate which has made the election interesting.
Congress sources claimed that the party has the support of four others.
“Besides, we may get three votes from the rival camp,” a top Congress source told PTI.
Fearing cross-voting, the Congress and the BJP-JD(S) alliance huddled their MLAs in a private resort on Monday, 26 February.
They also conducted a workshop for the new members to inform them about the election process and how to cast their votes.
All parties have issued whips to the MLAs, who are the voters in Tuesday’s poll, amid apprehensions of cross-voting.
According to official sources, each candidate has to get 45 votes to win, if there are only four candidates in the fray, but in the case of more candidates, the preference votes kick in.
BJP MLA Arvind Bellad was confident about the victory of both the candidates.
“There’s a huge disgruntlement among Congress MLAs. Not even a single rupee has been released to anyone for any developmental work. In the last nine months, the Congress government has been completely defunct. We are confident that the disgruntled MLAs will vote for our NDA candidate,” he told reporters at the Vidhana Soudha.
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