Karnataka verdict: CM Siddaramaiah loses Chamundeshwari seat

Bengaluru: After the much hyped political drama in the Karnataka assembly elections, counting of votes began in 224 constituencies amid tight security on Tuesday.

While a total of 113 is needed for the majority government, according to the early trends the Bharatiya Janata Party is just a step far from victory with almost 112 seats coming its way. Congress is far behind with approximately 68 seats falling to the kitty followed by 44 seats for the JD-S.

LIVE Results:

• BJP won at 73 seats while Congress won 43 and JD-S got 18 seats till now.
• Chief Minister Siddaramaiah loses Chamundeshwari seat by 30,000 seats. GT Devegowda wins.

• BJP CM Candidate BS Yeddyurappa wins from Shikaripura seat by 35,397 votes.
• CM Siddaramaiah to meet the Governor of Karnataka at 4 pm today

The Election Commission confirmed that the vote counting began at 8 am today at 38 centres in 30 districts. "Approximately 72.36 per cent of the 5.07 crore electorate polled across the state on Saturday," stated the EC.

"The poll panel has deployed 16,662 personnel to count votes in each segment and declare the result after the process is completed," noted the official.

Also Read: Manmohan objects Modi’s language in Karnataka speech

The Polling:

Votes polled in 26 of the 28 Bengaluru's urban and rural segments are being counted at four centres across the city.

In all, 2,622 candidates, including 217 women contested for the seats, which had 36 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 15 for the Scheduled Tribes.

The Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) were the main contenders among other national, regional and fringe parties in the May 12 elections.

Election in Bengaluru's Raja Rajeshwari (RR) Nagar was postponed to May 28 due to seizure of voter ID cards and countermanded in the city's Jayanagar seat due to the death of BJP candidate and MLA B.N. Vijaya Kumar on May 4. Vote counting in RR Nagar will be taken up on May 31.