The Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 29 announced that the Karnataka Assembly election would be held on May 10 and votes would be counted on May 13.
With the announcement of the poll schedule by the poll-body, Model Code of Conduct comes into effect from today.
Elaborating the schedule of the Assembly polls, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that date of issue of gazette notification for single phase election for 224-member House will be released on April 13.
While the last date of making nominations has been set as 20 April. The scrutiny of nominations will take place on April 21 and the last date for withdrawal of candidatures has been set as April 24.
The term of the current assembly will expire on May 24. Over 5.21 crore people are eligible to vote for the Assembly elections CEC said adding more than 9.17 lakh are first-time voters.
For the smooth conduct of polls, CEC Rajiv Kumar said there will be 58,282 polling stations in the state, of which 24,063 are urban and 34,219 are rural polling stations.
Voting from home will be available for citizens above the age of 80 years and people with disabilities, the chief election commissioner of India said.
A close contest is expected between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition Congress. In 2019, after the collapse of JD-S and Congress government, BJP came into power. The saffron party managed to get rebel MLAs into its camp and has currently 121 MLAs in the state, Congress has 70 and the JD-S has 30.
