Karnataka election's 72.13% voter turnout highest since 1952 Assembly polls, says state CEO

Bengaluru: The 72.13 percent voter turnout in the Karnataka Assembly elections has broken all records and is the highest since the 1952 state polls, Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar said on Sunday. [caption id=“attachment_4467223” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] Women and young voters exercised their franchise in large numbers on Saturday, he told PTI. “The voter turnout in the polls broke all records last night. By midnight, the figures showed that it was 72.13 percent,” he told PTI in Bengaluru. The turnout was the highest-ever in Karnataka since the 1952 Assembly elections, he said. Kumar said the 2013 Assembly polls had recorded a turnout of 71.45 percent, which was the highest in the last six Assembly elections. It was 65 percent in 2008 and 2004, 69 percent in the 1989 and 1994 and 69 percent in the 1990 elections, he said. To a question on seizures in the run-up to the polls, he said Rs 94 crore in cash, besides liquor worth Rs 24.78 crore and other items such as clothes, vehicles and electronic gadgets worth Rs 66 crore had been seized. Kumar said re-election would take place in a polling station at Lottegollahalli in Hebbal constituency here since an electronic voting machine developed a glitch. The election for the Jayanagara seat in Bengaluru was countermanded following the death of BJP candidate and sitting MLA BN Vijaykumar on 4 May. The Election Commission has deferred the polls for the Rajarajeswari Nagar seat to 28 May after a massive row erupted over a large number of voter ID cards being found in a Bengaluru apartment. A single-phase polling was held in 222 constituencies out of the 224 elected seats in the Assembly, including 36 reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) and 15 for the Scheduled Tribes (ST). Karnataka has an electorate of over 4.97 crores, including 2.52 crore men and 2.45 crore women. There were 15.42 lakh new voters, all in the age group of 18-19. The counting of votes will take place on 15 May.