The election commission has declared the schedule of the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections. The election commission announced on Wednesday that the 16th Karnataka state assembly election polling would be held on 10th May 2023. The results of the election will be declared on 13th May 2023. The 224-member assembly of the Karnataka state will complete its fifteenth tenure on 24th May 2023 and the election commission now announced the elections for the sixteenth assembly.
The Gazette Notification for the election will be issued on 13 April, and the last date for submitting nominations will be 20 April. Nominations will be scrutinised on 21st April, and they could be withdrawn till 24 April.
There are 224 seats in the state assembly, out of which 36 are reserved for SCs and 15 for STs. As per the latest data of the electoral roll, the number of voter in the State of Karnataka is 5,24,11,557, which includes 5,23,63,948 general voters and 47,609 service voters. In the year 2022, 9,58,806 new voters were added to the roll. There will be a total of 58,282 polling stations during this election.
At present, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a total of 119 seats, while the Congress has a total of 75 and its ally JD(S) has a total of 28 seats. There are about 17 thousand voters in the state whose age has crossed 100 years. The facility of voting from home has been started for people above 80 years of age and disabled people. Karnataka has a total of almost 5.22 crore (5,21,73,579) voters. There are 9.17 lakh new voters who will be voting for the first time. Those who are turning 18 on April 1 will also be able to vote. 224 such booths have been set up, in which youth employees will be deployed.
The election commission said that the election process will be completed before May 24. Accordingly, Karnataka will go to polls in a single phase on May 10. The results of the 224-member Assembly will be declared on May 13.
In assembly elections held in 2018, no political party got an absolute majority. At that time, Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) formed the government together. JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy became the Chief Minister in the coalition government. But after about 14 months, many Congress MLAs resigned and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. This led to the fall of the Kumaraswamy government. Senior BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa served as the chief minister from 26th July 2019 to 28th July 2021. In the remaining term, BJP leader Basavaraj Bommai became the chief minister as BS Yeddyurappa resigned.
