Bypolls peaceful, 15% vote by noon

Bangalore, Aug 21: Around 15 percent of over 3.6 million voters cast their ballots in the first four hours of voting in bypolls for two Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka Wednesday, an official said.

"Voting is underway peacefully in both Bangalore Rural and Mandya constituencies," an election commission spokesperson told reporters here. Mandya is about 80 km from Bangalore.

Though polling booths opened at 8 a.m., at many places voting started late because of technical glitches, the spokesperson said. Polling ends at 5 p.m. and the vote count is Aug 24.

The bypolls follow resignation of Janata Dal-S Lok Sabha members H.D. Kumaraswamy and N. Cheluvarayaswamy after they got elected to the state assembly in May.

Kumaraswamy held the Bangalore Rural seat while Cheluvarayaswamy represented Mandya.

The two constituencies will see direct fight between the JDS and the ruling Congress party as the Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew its candidates in support of the former.

Kumaraswamy has fielded his wife Anita Kumaraswamy from Bangalore Rural.

Anita is pitted against Congress's D.K. Suresh, the younger brother of Congress legislator D.K. Shivakumar.

There are 11 independents in the fray in Bangalore Rural. In Mandya, the battle is between popular Kannada film actress Ramya of the Congress and C.S. Puttaraju of JD-S.

Seven independents are also contesting. Bangalore Rural has over two million voters, around 900,000 of them women. Mandya has more than 1.6 million voters, nearly half of them women.

An estimated 36.37 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. Security has been provided to all the 4,360 polling stations in the two constituencies to ensure peaceful voting, . Around 25,000 security personnel will be on duty. As many as 675 booths have been declared hyper-sensitive and 1,250 sensitive.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has played for high stakes in the polls that was marked by a no-holds barred attack by leaders of Congress and JDS, which has the backing of BJP for both the seats.

The bypoll was necessitated by the resignation of N Cheluvarayaswamy (Mandya) and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy (Bangalore Rural) who quit after being elected to the Assembly in May.

JDS of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has fielded Kumaraswamy's wife Anita from Bangalore Rural, and C S Puttaraju in Mandya. Leading Kannada actor Ramya is Congress candidate from Mandya and D K Suresh, brother of senior Congress leader and MLA D K Shivakumar from Bangalore Rural.

Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha on Tuesday said about sixty teams of surveillance and flying squads would be deployed for the by-elections.

There would be a ban on exit poll on the date of poll. Any analysis in the preceding 48 hours is an offence under the Representation of People's Act, he added.

The Gowda belt of Mandya is a stronghold of JDS, which won five of the eight Assembly seats in the district in the May elections.

In Bangalore Rural, where Kumaraswamy had won by 1.3 lakh votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress has secured the support of Samajwadi Party MLA, C P Yogeeshwara, who who reigned supreme in Channapa Assembly segment defeating Anita in May.