The counting of votes in the Assembly bypolls in Karnataka is set to take palace today. The bypolls were held in three assembly constituencies: Sandur, Shiggaon, and Channapatna.
By-polls for Sandur, Shiggaon, and Channapatna were necessitated, as the seats fell vacant following the election of their respective representatives—E Tukaram of Congress, former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, and Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy of the JD(S)—to Lok Sabha in the May elections.
Among the three segments, Channapatna is considered to be a ‘high profile’, where the contest is between C P Yogeeshwara, a five-time MLA from the segment and former minister who joined the Congress, quitting the BJP recently, and actor-turned-politician Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who is Kumaraswamy’s son and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda’s grandson.
In Shiggaon, BJP’s Bharath Bommai, son of Basavaraj Bommai, had a direct fight against Congress’ Yasir Ahmed Khan Pathan, who had faced defeat against the former chief minister in the 2023 Assembly polls.
In Sandur, Bellary MP Tukaram’s wife, E Annapurna of Congress, is contesting from the seat vacated by her husband against BJP state ST Morcha president Bangaru Hanumanthu, who is considered close to party leader and former mining baron G Janardhana Reddy.
On the polling day, an estimated 76.9 percent of voters turned out in the three Assembly segments of Karnatak, election officials said. More than seven lakh voters were eligible to cast their votes in about 770 polling stations in Shiggaon, Sandur, and Channapatna, where a total of 45 candidates were in the fray.
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