Voting underway for bypolls to 1 Lok Sabha, 2 assembly seats in K'taka
Bengaluru: Voting is underway for by-election to Belgaum Lok Sabha and Maski and Basavakalyan assembly segments in Karnataka on Saturday, poll officials said.
A total of 22,68,038 voters (including service voters) are eligible to cast their votes at 3,197 polling stations in the three constituencies where voting began at 7 am and will go on till 7 pm.
Among voters from all the three segments, over 11.37 lakh are men and over 11.22 lakh are women.
A total of 30 candidates are in the fray from all the three constituencies. While, Belgaum has 10 candidates, Basavakalyan and Maski have 12 and eight respectively.
Twenty-six out of the total 30 candidates are men. Among the four women include two from Basavakalyan and one each from Belgaum and Maski.
Counting of votes will take place on May 2.
Bypolls are being held by following the strict COVID-19 protocols, especially social distancing, wearing masks, using hand sanitisers among others, officials said, adding the last hour is reserved for coronavirus positive patients or those with symptoms.
By-polls to Belgaum Lok Sabha and Basavakalyan Assembly seats were necessitated following the death of Union Minister Suresh Angadi and MLA B Narayan Rao respectively due to COVID-19 in September last year.
Maski seat fell vacant following the disqualification of MLA Prathapagouda Patil who had won in 2018 as the Congress candidate and is now with the BJP.
The ruling BJP and the opposition Congress are battling it out in all three constituencies, while the JD(S) has limited itself only to Basavakalyan, as the regional party has not fielded any candidates in Maski and Belgaum.
The ruling BJP has fielded Mangala Suresh Angadi, the wife of late Suresh Angadi, from the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat.
Pratapagouda Patil, who quit Congress and joined the BJP is the saffron party's candidate from the Maski assembly segment, while youth leader Sharanu Salagar has been fielded in Basavakalyan.
BJP rebel and former MLA Mallikarjun Khuba is in the fray as an independent candidate from Basavakalyan.
The Congress has fielded its state working president Satish Jarkiholi, who is currently the MLA of Yamkanmaradi assembly segment, as its candidate from Belgaum.
Mallamma, the wife of late legislator B Narayan Rao, is the grand old party's candidate from Basavakalyan seat, while Basanagouda Turvihal, who recently joined the party, has been fielded in Maski segment.
JD(S) has named Syed Yasrab Ali Quadri, who was with the Congress earlier, as its candidate from Basavakalyan.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
