Karnataka council polls: Political parties fear cross-voting

Elections to 11 Karnataka Legislative Council seats will be held tomorrow amid apprehension among the political parties over possible cross- voting.

Given their strength in the Lower House, the ruling BJP is sure to win six seats and the opposition Congress and JDS three and one, respectively. While BJP has fielded six candidates, the Congress and JDS has put into fray four and one, respectively. All the three parties have some surplus votes and have been engaged in fine-tuning their strategy for the secret ballot.

BJP's B J Puttaswamy, Vimala Gowda, D S Veeraiah, Raghunath Rao Malkapure, M B Bhanuprakash and Somanna Bevinamarada, and Congress' Motamma, Iqbal Ahmed Saradagi and K Govindaraju, and S M Agha of the JDS are expected to win.

There is an intense interest on the fight between the Congress' fourth candidate M R Seetharam and independent Byrati Suresh, who has the backing of the JDS.

Besides the issue of surplus votes, six independent MLAs, including former Minister B Sriramulu, hold the key to the outcome of this contest.