Dharwad/Kalaburagi: A high voter turnout, a slow counting process and a large number of invalid votes delayed vote counting in the Karnataka legislative council elections from the West Graduates’ Constituency on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the BJP was set to retain the North East Teachers’ Constituency, with its candidate, Shashil G Namoshi, crossing the winning quota in the third round of first-preference vote counting.Counting began at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, on Tuesday morning. However, only three rounds were completed by late evening, highlighting the time-consuming nature of the exercise. At the end of the third round, BJP candidate SV Sankanur was leading Congress candidate Mohan Limbikai by 4,925 votes. Sankanur secured 18,811 first-preference votes against Limbikai’s 13,886.The ballot boxes were brought out of the strongroom between 8am and 8.30am and randomised before counting commenced. With more than 75% of the electorate casting their votes, the total number of ballots exceeded 73,000.A large number of ballots were found invalid as voters failed to indicate their preferences correctly. While some marked their choices with ticks, others used crosses instead of numerical preferences, raising doubts about the validity of their votes. As the counting process remained cumbersome and time-consuming, the final outcome was expected to be declared well past midnight.In Kalaburagi, Namoshi led Congress candidate Sharanappa Mattur by 3,297 votes. Namoshi secured 15,596 votes against Mattur’s 12,299. Of the 30,253 votes polled, 28,380 were valid and 1,873 were rejected. The winning quota was fixed at 14,191 votes, calculated as 50% of the valid votes plus one.The constituency has 34,784 registered voters, of whom 30,253 exercised their franchise. With Namoshi having crossed the winning quota, his victory appeared certain, pending the formal declaration of results.
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