Ruling Congress in Karnataka on Monday retained Bagalkot and Davanagere South assembly seats, giving a respite to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the party leadership, amid the ongoing power tussle over the leadership issue.
The BJP may be in the Opposition in many states, but nowhere is it as divided as it is in Karnataka, points out Aditi Phadnis.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
For the May 10 assembly elections in Karnataka, the following are the 20 seats to watch out for.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
There is no mention of Kolar, the second seat from where senior party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, wants to contest, in addition to Varuna, where his name is already cleared.
A day after fielding Mohammed Yousuf Savanur as its candidate from Shiggaon in Haveri district, the party nominated Yasir Ahmed Khan Phatan in his place.
Shettar has been given the ticket from Hubli-Dharwad-Central Assembly segment which he currently represents.
Here's how some of the heavyweights fared in the Karnataka elections.
There are critics who say the Bommai's government was not able to counter the Congress narrative to paint his administration as corrupt, a factor that helped the Congress surge in the May 10 assembly elections.
All eyes are now on Kumar who has to take a call on the resignations tendered by 13 MLAs of the Congress and the JD-S from the assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released its first list of 189 candidates for the May 10 Karnataka assembly polls, fielding Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from his traditional Shiggaon constituency.
The Congress fielded former Governor Margaret Alva's son Nivedit Alva from the Kumta assembly seat.
Voting came to an end for the Karnataka assembly elections on Wednesday at 6 pm with data showing a voter turnout of 65.69 per cent an hour ago.
'Bommai is everybody's man and nobody's man'
The 61 year-old leader was the Minister for Home Affairs, Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislature in Yediyurappa's council of ministers that was dissolved on Monday and was also the Minister in-charge of Haveri and Udupi Districts.
Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday took charge as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, ending months of speculation about the change of guard in the state.
In the course of his various tenures, Yediyurappa made many adversaries. Bommai, by contrast, knows the Opposition well and has many friends, cutting across parties -- he is, after all, only a 2008 BJP entrant.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
The 61-year old leader will take oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka from Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot at the Raj Bhavan on Wednesday at 11 am.
During the Karnataka elections held in May this year, the average amount spent on the campaign by each candidate was Rs 7.43 lakh. Interestingly, this is just 46 per cent of the allotted budget of Rs 16 lakh per candidate.
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