63 per cent polling in Karnataka civic election
Bengaluru: The election to 105 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across Karnataka held from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. registered 63.8 per cent voting, the State Election Commission (SEC) said on Friday.
The local bodies across 24 districts of the state registered an average voting percentage of 63.8, according to polling data from the SEC released on Friday night.
Voting which began at a slow pace at 7 a.m. in most parts of the southern state moderated by noon and then picked up pace.
Polling took place peacefully across the 2,662 wards of the state, spread over 29 city municipalities, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats and in 135 wards of the three city corporations, an election official said.
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used for polling in all the wards amid tight security, with about 40,000 personnel deployed across the state to maintain law and order.
A total of 36 lakh voters were registered for exercising their franchise in the ULB wards and 13.33 lakh in the three towns of Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru.
In all, 8,340 candidates, including 2,306 from the Congress, 2,203 from the Bharatiya Janata Party and 1,397 from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) are in the fray for the ULBs, while 814 contested from the city corporations, including 135 from Congress, 130 from BJP and 129 from JD-S.
Counting of votes will be taken up on September 3 and most of the results are expected by night or early Tuesday.
In the 2013 ULB elections held in 4,976 seats, the Congress had won 1,960 seats, while BJP and JD-S had won 905 seats each, while independents bagged the remaining 1,206 seats.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
