The Election Commission of India (ECI) today announced the schedule for the forthcoming Karnataka assembly election. Karnataka will see a single-phase polling, on May 10, followed by the counting of votes, three days later, on May 13.
Nearly 5.22 crore electors are eligible to cast their vote in the elections for 224 seats, out of which 173 seats are reserved for the general category, 36 for Scheduled Castes (SC), and 15 for Scheduled Tribes (ST).
In south the Karnataka is only state where the BJP has been in power, and in the 2018 election, it emerged as the single-largest party, winning 104 seats in the 224-member assembly. The Congress, on the other hand, won 80 seats, while the Janata Dal’s (Secular) tally stood at 37. After the election, however, the Congress and JD(S) formed a coalition government, with the latter’s HD Kumaraswamy taking oath as the chief minister.
The election is expected to see a close contest between the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, while Janata Dal (Secular) could emerge as the kingmaker. It may be noted that, the BJP came to power in July 2019 by toppling the Congress-JD(S) coalition government elected in the previous state Assembly election in 2018.The BJP has 119 seats, Congress 75 and its ally JD(S) has 28 seats.