The D-Day of the most fiercely fought Karnataka Assembly elections has arrived. Counting of votes for the Assembly elections will be taken up at 8 am on Tuesday and trends are likely to trickle in within an hour and all results are expected to be declared by late evening.

The entire nation has been keenly watching the Karnataka elections, touted as a precursor to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Tight security arrangements have been made at 38 centres across the state where counting will be taken up.

After days of high-voltage campaigning, the state recorded its highest ever turnout of 72.36% on May 12.

A victory for the Congress will come as a morale booster for the party which has been losing state after state after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. A clear mandate (113 seats and above) will mean that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s bhagya schemes have struck a rapport with the people and its separate minority religion tag for Lingayats has worked.

In Karnataka, no party has won a second consecutive term since 1985 when the Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata Party retained power.

A win for the BJP, on the other hand, will mean a continuation of the victory march of the saffron party led by the Modi-Shah duo in the country. It will also galvanise the rank and file of the BJP cadre ahead of the Assembly elections in party-ruled Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh later this year.