Bangalore: Around 50 percent of over 3.6 million voters cast their ballots yesterday in the bypolls for two Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka, an official said.
Meanwhile, around 45 percent polling was recorded in the by-election to Avanigadda assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh
“Preliminary reports reaching us soon after booths closed at 5pm show that about 50 percent voting took place,” an election commission spokesperson told reporters in Bangalore.
Voting took place for Bangalore Rural and Mandya Lok Sabha seats. Mandya is about 80km from Bangalore.
Bangalore Rural has over two million voters, around 900,000 of them women. Mandya has more than 1.6 million voters, nearly half of them women.
Voting booths opened at 8am but in many places voting began late due to technical glitches in the electronic voting machines, the spokesperson said.
The election results would be out on August 24.
The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), which held both the seats, and the ruling Congress are locked in a straight battle as the Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew from the contest in support of the former.
There are 18 independents also in the fray, 11 in Bangalore Rural and seven in Mandya. The Bangalore Rural seat was held by JD-S state president and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy while Mandya was represented by N Cheluvarayaswamy.
Both quit Lok Sabha on getting elected to Karnataka assembly in the May 5 elections, necessitating the bypolls.
Kumaraswamy, son of JD-S president and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, has fielded his wife Anita Kumaraswamy in Bangalore Rural.
The Congress candidate is D K Suresh, brother of party legislator and former minister D K Sureshkumar.
In Mandya, the Congress nominee is popular Kannada actor Ramya and her JD-S opponent is former legislator C.S. Puttaraju.
Though the winners will have about nine months term in the Lok Sabha as general elections are due in April-May, the Congress and the JD-S turned the bypoll battle into a matter of prestige.
According to poll officials, no untoward incident was reported during the polling in the Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh. The polling, which began on a dull note in the morning, improved in the afternoon.
Lack of enthusiasm among voters, especially in the first few hours, marked the polling due to the absence of candidates of major parties barring the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and also the ongoing political turmoil in Seemandhra over the central government’s decision to carve out a separate Telangana state.
The polling which began at 8am at 241 polling stations, concluded at 5pm. There are 1.88 lakh voters in the constituency.
IANS
