Election fever in the country kicks off with Karnataka going to polls on Saturday morning.

Voting began early and voters were seeing queuing up outside the various polling booths in the 89 Assembly constituencies - including 28 from Bangalore - that go to polls in the first phase.

Tumkur, Chikkaballapur, Kolar, Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Ramanagara, Mandya, Hassan, Kodagu, Mysore and Chamarajanagar are among the key constituencies where voting will take place on Saturday.

The bigwigs and the key contests

Heavyweights in the fray for this phase include former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy of the JD(S) - seeking reelection from Ramanagara - Congress Campaign Committee Chairman and former deputy chief minister S Siddaramaiah - contesting from newly carved Varuna segment in Mysore District.

Other prominent contestants include Union Minister and MP from Mandya, M H Ambareesh (who is contesting from Srirangapatna), Kumaraswamy's brother H D Revanna (Holenarasipura) and JD(S) state unit president B Somashekar (Malavalli).

Speaker Krishna (JD(S)-K R Pet), state Youth Congress president Krishna Byregowda (Byatarayanapura), former minister H C Srikantaiah (Congress-Shravanabelagola), A Krishnappa (Congress-K R Puram), Katta Subramanya Naidu (BJP-Hebbal) are some of the other noted candidates in the fray.

Former minister and CWC member G Parameshwara is contesting from Koratagere reserved constituency, after shifting from Madhugiri, which has now become general seat.

Former minister C Chennigappa of JD(S) has shifted to Doddaballapur from Koratagere, while Gowrishankar is making his debut from Madhugiri.

Both Kumaraswamy and Revanna, sons of former prime minister and JD(S) leader H D Deve Gowda, are facing women candidates.

Mamatha Nichani, eldest daughter of former Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde, is taking on Kumaraswamy while S G Anupama, daughter-in-law of late Congress Lok Sabha member G Puttaswamy Gowda, is fighting Revanna.

Siddaramaiah's main opponent is BJP's L Revanasiddaiah, a retired director general of police.

State turns fortress

Elaborate security arrangements have been made for across the 18,500 polling stations.

“We have classified out of the 5,685 booths in Bangalore, 2000 as hyper sensitive, 2000 as sensitive and 1,622 as normal,” said Director General and Inspector General of Police, R Srikumar.

The state will see unprecedented security perhaps because of the violence it has seen in some areas and the large-scale seizure of election freebies like saris over the last couple of weeks.

Close to 58,000 security personnel, including central paramilitary forces and Karnataka State Reserve Police, have been deployed for the first phase, in which nearly 1.73 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.

“Last time we had about 30 companies of central security forces. This time we have 225 companies,” said chief electoral officer, M N Vidyashnkar.

Clueless voters

Yet, with Karnataka being the first experiment in delimitation and with such short notice on polling, voters are confused on the new Assembly segments they come under.

“I'm from CV Raman Nagar, I don't know which constituency. It’s Varthur side I think,” a confused voter told CNN-IBN. Added another, “All these years, we're voting, but this year our name is missing.”

Number crunching

More than 950 candidates, including 440 independents, face the electorate in the first phase being held in the Old Mysore region from where the JD(S) bagged 34 seats in the 2004 elections. The Congress then secured 24 seats and the BJP got 15.

BSP's presence has added a new dimension this time.

Significantly, the number of segments in Bangalore has swelled to 28 from 16 after the delimitation process.

A general holiday has been declared on Saturday to facilitate people coming under the segments to exercise their franchise, including those working in the state and Union government offices.

The Karnataka Assembly has 224 seats. The second and third phase of elections would be held on May 16 and 22.