Voting underway for four RS seats in Karnataka as Congress eyes rival camp support
Bengaluru, Feb 27: Amid cross-voting fears, voting in the elections for the four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka is underway on Tuesday, with the ruling Congress claiming it could get support from the rival camp.
Fearing cross-voting, both the Congress and the BJP-JD(S) alliance huddled their MLAs in a private resort on Monday and held a workshop for the new members on the election process and how to cast their votes.
The Congress has 133 MLAs, excluding the Speaker, while the BJP and JD(S) have 66 and 19 legislators respectively, in the 223-member House. Others account for four. However, one Congress MLA died on Sunday.
Congress sources claimed that the party has the support of four others.
Of the four others, the ruling party claims the support of two independents and Darshan Puttanaiah from Sarvodaya Karnataka Paksha, and is confident of winning three seats.
Interestingly, the fourth one - G Janardhana Reddy of Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha had met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday. Reddy, a mining baron, is a former BJP minister.
ALSO READ: Voting underway for four RS seats in Karnataka
"Besides, we may get three votes from the rival camp," a top Congress source told PTI.
On Tuesday, voting began at 9 am and will go on till 4 pm. The counting will start from 5 pm.
The MLAs will exercise their voting rights using an open ballot system.
They have to display their voting preference to the nominated polling agents.
The Rajya Sabha seats fell vacant following the retirement of four members - Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar (BJP) and Congress' G C Chandrashekhar, Syed Naseer Hussain and L Hanumanthaiah.
The ruling party has fielded Chandrashekhar, Naseer Hussain and former union minister Ajay Maken.
The BJP has fielded Narayansa Bhandage, besides JD(S) candidate D Kupendra Reddy as the NDA candidate which has made the election interesting.
All parties have issued whips to the MLAs, who are the voters in Tuesday's poll, amid apprehensions of cross-voting.
According to official sources, each candidate has to get 45 votes to win, if there are only four candidates in the fray, but in the case of more candidates, the preference votes kick in.
BJP MLA Arvind Bellad was confident about the victory of both the candidates.
"There's a huge disgruntlement among Congress MLAs. Not even a single rupee has been released to anyone for any developmental work. In the last nine months, the Congress government has been completely defunct. We are confident that the disgruntled MLAs will vote for our NDA candidate," he told PTI.
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U-19 World Cup: India start favourites against Bangladesh
Bulawayo (PTI): Seeking to continue their confident start to the tournament, a well-balanced India will begin as firm favourites despite facing a tricky Bangladesh in their second match of the ICC U-19 World Cup here Saturday.
Five-time champions India started their campaign on expected lines, registering a six-wicket win over USA after bundling the opponents out for a paltry 107 in a rain-hit match, with right-arm pacer Henil Patel returning exceptional figures of 5/16 in seven overs and the other bowlers also doing a fine job.
The star-studded Indian batting line-up will hope to get an extended run at the crease against Bangladesh, who are likely to pose a greater challenge to the Ayush Mhatre-led side after a rather comfortable win against the USA.
The opening duo of Mhatre and the incredible 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi will again lead the batting in the company of vice-captain Vihaan Malhotra, all-rounders Aaron George and Vedant Trivedi and wicketkeeper Abhigyan Kundu.
D. Deepesh, RS Ambrish, Henil Patel, Kishan Kumar Singh and Udhav Mohan offer the team pace bowling options, while the likes of Kanishk Chouhan, Khilan Patel and Mohamed Enaan shoulder the spin bowling responsibility.
Champions in five of the 16 editions, India are by far the most dominant team in the history of the competition, which started back in 1988 with Australia emerging winners in the inaugural event.
Raising their prospects further is the team's form in the last one year, having won series in England, Australia and South Africa. The victory against USA was India's 14th in last 17 matches, and the side is backing itself to continue the excellent run of form against their next opponents.
As far as Bangladesh are concerned, they have captain Azizul Hakim who has a fair bit of experience, and a lot will depend on how he marshals his side in the tournament in Zimbabwe and Namibia.
With his deputy Zawad Abrar, Hakim will spearhead the Bangladesh batting. The duo have been prolific at the under-19 level, having scored over 1000 runs in Youth ODIs since the last edition of the tournament in 2024. Kalam Siddiki, with 857 runs in this period, is another prolific run-getter in the side.
Bangladesh also carry a potent bowling attack, with pacers Iqbal Hossain and Al Fahad expected to get plenty of support in pace-friendly conditions in Zimbabwe.
These two are the most successful bowlers since the last U19 World Cup with 45 and 43 wickets to their names respectively. Not too far behind is left-arm spinner Samiun Basir, who had 29 wickets in this period, at an economy of under four.
Teams (from):
India: Ayush Mhatre (c), R.S. Ambrish, Kanishk Chouhan, D. Deepesh, Mohamed Enaan, Aaron George, Abhigyan Kundu, Kishan Kumar Singh, Vihaan Malhotra, Udhav Mohan, Henil Patel, Khilan A. Patel, Harvansh Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Vedant Trivedi.
Bangladesh: Azizul Hakim Tamim (c), Zawad Abrar, Samiun Basir Ratul, Sheikh Parvez Jibon, Rizan Hossan, Shaharia Al Amin, Shadin Islam, Md Abdullah, Farid Hasan Faysal, Kalam Siddiki Aleen, Rifat Beg, Saad Islam Razin, Al Fahad, Shahriar Ahmed, Iqbal Hossain. Reserves: Abdur Rahim, Debashis Sarkar Deba, Rafi Uzzaman Rafi, Farhan Shahriar, Farzan Ahmed Alif, Sanjid Majumder, Md Sobuj.
Match starts 1.00 pm IST.
