Belying apprehensions of a not-so-encouraging turnout, the 15 Assembly constituencies where crucial bypolls were held on Thursday registered an impressive 66.49% voting.
What the high voter turnout in some constituencies or the poor polling percentage in the four Bengaluru seats will hold for the candidates and parties will be known only on Monday. If exit polls are anything to go by, the BJP can breathe easy with most pollsters giving the party a comfortable edge over the Congress and JDS.
While the BJP needs at least six seats to get simple majority, exit polls have predicted victory in eight to 12 seats out of 15 for the party. This means that the BJP government is not just safe for now, but can complete the full tenure in office.
Polling agency C-Voter has predicted that the BJP could win 10-12 seats while the Congress can hope to win two to four seats, leaving the JDS’ chances to a bare minimum of one to two seats. Three other regional news channels that conducted their own exit polls have also predicted a big victory for the BJP. The poll of polls of all prominent exit polls gives the BJP 10 seats with four for the Congress and one for the JDS.
The BJP leaders, including Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, have expressed confidence of winning all 15 seats while the Congress claimed to be sure of victory at least seven seats. The JDS has focused on three of the twelve constituencies it is contesting.
Most exit poll predictions were based on the voter turnout till 4 pm, but in a late surge, polling percentages shot up in many constituencies by end of polling at 6 pm.
Whether parties have been able to hold on to their vote banks while cashing in on their candidates’ individual votes or have lost votes in the transfer of loyalties holds the key to Karnataka’s political future.
Considering the BJP’s strategy that a higher voter turnout will be favourable to the party, the increased polling percentage is giving positive signals to the Yediyurappa-led BJP government. In constituencies like Shivajinagar, where the Congress was banking on higher voter turnout to be in its favour, percentages have been disappointing.
Demolishing the conventional thinking that voter turnout in bypolls are generally lower than general elections, Hoskote polled 90.44%, beating its own performance of 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2018 Assembly elections when the voter turnout was 89.97 % and 87.81%, respectively. With this, the battle for Hoskote — the only constituency that has seen open rebellion by cadres of the BJP — has only become more interesting.
The Chikkaballapur and Hunsur segments saw a significant improvement in polling from the previous election while all four constituencies in Bengaluru registered abysmal voter turnout. In KR Puram constituency, polling was the least at 43.25% followed by Shivajinagar with 44.60% turnout. These numbers are far lower than the previous polls in the two constituencies.