Bengaluru:After a month-long campaign by all the political players in the state, Karnataka is gearing up for voting day on Wednesday. Voters are expected to queue up before the polling booths to cast their votes in favour of their respective candidates to the 224-member Legislative Assembly. A total of 2,615 candidates are in the fray.
Poll officials cast their vote through postal ballot on Tuesday, a day ahead of the state elections. The voting will kickstart at 7 am Wednesday and will continue till 6 pm. 51055172 voters are expected to vote in the 58,545 polling stations spread across the state. Among the voters, 25801408 are male, 25248925 female and 4839 "others". Among the candidates 2,430 are male, 184 female and one from third gender. A total of 11,71,558 are young voters, 5,71,281 are persons with disabilities (PWDs) and 12,15,920 are aged above 80.
Security has been beefed up across the state for the smooth conduct of elections. Around 8,500 police officers and staff and home guards have been deployed from neighbouring states as well. Over 1.5 lakh police and CRPF have been deployed. A total of 84,119 personnel including 304 DySPs, 991 Inspectors, 2,610 PSIs, 5,803 ASIs, 46,421 HCs and 27,990 PC Home Guards have been deployed for election duty.
A total of 75,603 Ballot Units (BU), 70,300 Control Units (CU) and 76,202 voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) are slated to be used during voting. 'Critical Polling Stations' are covered by one or more of the measures like Micro Observers, Webcasting and CCTVs to keep a watch on the polling process as force multipliers.
In a first the Election Commission has allowed those above 80 years of age and those with more than 40 percent disabilities to vote from home. Out of 99,529 voters got registered to vote from home, over 94,931 voters cast their votes. Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Tuesday requested the people of Karnataka to vote for development, progress and efficient governance.