Karnataka Assembly elections to be held on May 12th, counting on 15th

The Election Commission on Tuesday announced the polling schedule for 224-member Karnataka assembly.

Addressing the media, Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat said "The election will be conducted in a single phase and the voting will take place on May 12th. The counting will take place on May 15th." The notification will be issued on April 17th and the last date of nomination will be April 24th. The scrutiny of nominations will be done on April 24th and the last date of withdrawal of candidature will be 12th of May.

The polls are being seen politically crucial for the ruling Congress as well as the BJP as it is the only big state where the former is in power after losing a string of assembly elections to the saffron party in the last few years.

The poll panel said that the model code of conduct comes into effect immediately from now onwards, also applicable to union government regarding schemes pertaining to Karnataka. 

The ceiling on expenditure per candidate is 23 lakh, however, there is no cap on the expenditure of parties.

The commission said that there are more than 4 crore people voters, and 56,696 polling stations will be set-up, which is an increase of almost 9% from 2013 elections.

The CEC also said that the VVPAT machines will be used for all EVMs in the polling. 

The tenure of Karnataka assembly ends in May 2018.

The high-octane campaign for the Karnataka polls is underway with the heavyweights of both Congress and BJP canvassing in the state. The HD Deve Gowda-led JD(S) is the other major party in the fray.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has also been frequenting the state and visited holy places linked to different religions and castes in the four rounds of tour undertaken by him so far. Siddaramaiah has exuded confidence that the Congress will retain power in the state, even as he asserted that "none can stop" party chief Rahul Gandhi from becoming the next prime minister of the country.