Women voters outnumber male voters in the upcoming biennial elections to 25 seats of the Legislative Council from 20 local authorities constituencies across the State.
Of the 98,846 voters on the list, 51,474 are women while 47,368 are men. Most of the voters are those who have been elected to gram panchayats in the elections held in December 2020. In all, the Election Commission is proposing to have 6,073 polling stations in these constituencies to enable voters, who are members of urban and rural local bodies, to cast their ballot.
Of the 20 local authorities, Belagavi, Vijayapura, Dharwad, Dakshina Kannada, and Mysuru constituencies will elect two members each to the Legislative Council. While the fight would be straight between parties in other constituencies, it is these dual constituencies that pose a challenge to parties before they field candidates.
Belagavi Local Authority constituency has the highest number of voters at 8,871, followed by Dharwad – 7,502, Vijayapura – 7,385, Mysuru – 6,764, and Dakshin Kannada – 6,043 voters.
“Parties are carefully calculating their moves to field two candidates in these constituencies. Since it is preferential voting system, same party candidates may fight for the same votes and the party may end up losing both the seats,” a Congress leader said, adding that the members of the Legislative Assembly had an important role in mustering support for the party candidates in these elections. Among constituencies that elect one member, Kalaburagi Local Authorities constituency has the highest number of voters at 6,990, while Kodagu Local Authorities has the lowest number of voters – 1,328.
The absence of taluk and zilla panchayats members in these elections could reduce on an average about 200 to 250 votes across constituencies while it straight away reduces 198 votes in Bengaluru constituency due to the absence of BBMP councillors. While the State Government has been postponing elections to taluk and zilla panchayats, the matter of holding elections to the BBMP council is in court.
