India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking to win Thursday's bye-elections in Karnataka where it currently has a wafer-thin majority in the state legislature.
Voting began on Thursday morning in 15 assembly seats. The BJP needs six more seats to retain an absolute majority in the 207-member legislature.
The actual strength of the legislature is 224, but 17 opposition politicians belonging to the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) parties have been disqualified by the House Speaker following their decision to switch loyalties to the BJP in July.
India’s Supreme Court, while upholding the disqualification, has overruled the Speaker’s decision to bar them from contesting Thursday’s elections. Many of them are contesting the election on the BJP ticket.
A bye-election is held to fill an office that has fallen vacant between general elections. In most cases, they occur when an incumbent dies, resigns, becomes ineligible to continue in office, or an election in a constituency is declared invalid due to voting irregularities.
The high-octane election campaign in Karnataka ended on Tuesday.
For the BJP, Karnataka chief Yediyurappa is leading the campaign while former state chief Siddaramaiah is heading up Congress. The third major party is the Janata Dal (Secular) which is led by state chief H.D. Kumaraswamy.
The bye-polls were earlier slated for 21 October, but the Election Commission postponed it to 5 December after the apex court decided to hear the petitions of disqualified opposition politicians.
To ensure that the elections go smoothly, the Election Commission has deployed over 42,000 personnel for election management, including over 13,000 security officers. About 884 polling stations have been marked as sensitive, while 414 stations will be manned by central paramilitary personnel.