K'taka goes to polls on May 10

♦BJP hopes to buck trend

♦Cong looks to wrest power

♦JDS faces toughest challenge

New Delhi/Bengaluru: Assembly elections in Karnataka will be held in a single phase on May 10 setting the stage for yet another showdown between the ruling BJP and the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the JDS facing its toughest challenge in the southern state.

Announcing the poll schedule at a news conference in Delhi on Wednesday, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said votes will be counted on May 13.

As the political temperature in Karnataka hots up on a range of issues, the BJP hopes to buck a nearly four-decade-old trend to retain power and script history while the Congress will seek to upstage its saffron rival to up its stakes as a key challenger.

No political party has won a successive mandate in the state since 1985 and the BJP is eager to rewrite this bit of history and retain its southern citadel.

Kumar said elections for the 224-member Assembly have been scheduled on a Wednesday, and not on a Monday or Friday, to encourage greater participation of voters. "People can take a day off and have a long weekend. But by holding the poll on Wednesday, the possibility has been reduced," he said, adding the move is part of the EC's effort to ensure greater participation and curb voters' apathy in going to the polling stations.

Kumar said the poll notification will be issued on April 13 and the last date for filing nomination papers is April 20. He said the nomination papers will be scrutinised on April 21 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is April 24. Like in the last two decades, the polls will mainly be a three-cornered contest involving the BJP, Congress and JD(S).

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the BJP is confident of returning to power with absolute majority "BJP is ever-ready party. I am fully confident that we will get an absolute and clear majority and the BJP government will come (back) to power in 2023," he told reporters in Bengaluru.

Union minister Pralhad Joshi, an MP from Karnataka's Dharwad seat, echoed Bommai's sentiments and said he was confident about the BJP coming back to power for the second consecutive term because of its government's "historic" work for the development of the state.

BJP general secretary and in-charge for Karnataka Arun Singh said the party will go it alone in the polls.

Asked by newsmen if the BJP is holding any talks with the JDS to forge an alliance, he categorically said: "No. No. We are fighting on our own strength."

Whirlwind visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP President J P Nadda to the poll-bound State have no doubt given the party a leg-up in campaigning but it's up against a combative Congress which has sought to make corruption a central theme of the political narrative. The Congress is keen to wrest power to give the party a much-needed elbow room to help position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

It has made corruption a central theme of its campaign, pointing to various "scams" and 40 per cent commission charge by a contractors' body. The BJP has sought to counter this narrative by highlighting alleged graft during previous Congress regimes both at the Centre and the State.

Congress' Shivakumar told reporters that May 10 is not only the day of voting, but the sacred day of getting rid of corruption, a day of building a new Karnataka, and giving it a "new direction".

Also, what is being keenly watched is whether former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (Secular) will emerge as a "Kingmaker" by holding the key to government formation, in the event of a hung verdict, as it has done in the past.

The JD(S) faces a tough challenge as both the Congress and BJP are threatening to make huge dents in its Vokkaliga vote bank in the Old Mysuru region.

The Bommai government's decision to scrap the 4 per cent reservation for Muslims under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota, and distributing it equally among the dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities, while placing Muslims under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category, and introduction of internal reservation for different Dalit communities under Scheduled Caste (SC) category are also bound to raise political temperatures. In the outgoing 224-member assembly, the BJP currently has 119 seats, followed by the Congress with 75 and the JDS with 28 seats. Two seats are vacant.

No byelection at Wayanad now: EC

New Delhi: There will be no byelection to the Wayanad constituency, held by Rahul Gandhi before his disqualification from Parliament, the ECI said on Wednesday. The Election Commission of India said the trial court has given Rahul Gandhi one month time to file an appeal, therefore they cannot conduct bypolls at Wayanad.

Bypolls for 1 LS, 4 Assembly seats

New Delhi: The Election Commission announced byelections to the Lok Sabha constituency of Jalandhar as well as four Assembly seats, to be held along with the Karnataka Assembly election on May 10. The four Assembly constituencies where bypolls will be held are Jharsuguda (Odisha), Suar (Uttar Pradesh), Chhanbey (Uttar Pradesh) and Sohiong (Meghalaya).