Karnataka: 14 constituencies out of 28 will go for elections on April 18. Here are the complete details about key constituencies, candidates, booths and party status
Bengaluru: A total of 28 constituencies are going for polls in Karnataka in two phases on April 18 and April 23. Out of 28 constituencies, 14 will go for polls on April 18.
Elections will be held from 7 AM to 6 PM, across 14 constituencies in the state.
Accordingly, Udupi-Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumakuru, Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajnagar (SC), Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore South, Bangalore Central, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC) constituencies will go for election on April 18.
A total of 30,198 booths have been set up this time out of which 6,318 are critical.
The police have deployed 534 flying squads, 443 static surveillance teams and 139 Karnataka State Reserve Police companies.
Top leaders of two national parties-BJP and Congress campaigned in various parts of Karnataka for their respective candidates.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed public rallies in Chitradurga, Mysuru, Koppal, Mangaluru and Bengaluru.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi addressed rallies supporting joint candidates of Congress and JD(S) in Bengaluru, Kolar, Chitradurga and Mysuru.
Karnataka leaders from Congress, BJP and JD(S) have been holding rallies, public meetings, road shows and door-to-door canvassing that came to an end at 5 PM on April 17.
A total of 241 candidates, including 15 women and 133 independents are in the fray for the 14 seats.
The BJP is contesting in 13 seats in the first phase and in Mandya, the party is supporting multilingual south Indian actress Sumalatha, who is contesting as an independent.
Shobha Karandlaje is the lone woman standing for the second time from Udupi-Chikkamagaluru constituency. Congress and JD(S) have not fielded any woman candidate. However, 7 women candidates are contesting as independents in the first phase of election.
JD(S) party is contesting from four seats after seat-sharing agreement with the Congress. Of these seats, former PM HD Deve Gowda is contesting from Tumkur after he gave away the the party’s bastion of Hassan to his grandson and Minister HD Revanna’s son, Prajwal. The Mandya seat is being contested by Deve Gowda's grandson (chief minister Kumaraswamy's son) Nikhil Kumaraswamy, making this a family fight.
The fourth seat is being contested by Pramod Madhwaraj of Congress on aJD(S) ticket in Udupi-Chikkamagalur constituency, against BJP's Shobha Karandlaje.
Any loss of seat among these four constituencies will prove to be huge embarrassment to the JD(S).
After seat sharing, Congress is contesting in 10 seats including three reserved for SCs and the JD(S) in four seats in the first phase of election. Congress is mainly facing the wrath of dissidents who are not happy over seat sharing with JD(S) and are refusing to support the alliance candidates in four constituencies - Hassan, Mandya, Udupi and Tumlur.
Candidates:
Bengaluru North has the highest number of 31 candidates. Bengaluru South has 25 and there are 22 candidates in Bengaluru Central.
There are only 6 candidates in Hassan, 10 in Chamarajanagar, 12 in Udupi-Chikkamagaluru and 13 in Dakshina Kannada.
The key constituencies in the first phase are Bengaluru North, Bengaluru Central, Bengaluru South, Mandya, Hassan and Tumakuru.
2014 elections:
In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, out of these 14 seats, Congress and BJP had won 6 each while the JD(S) won two.
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