State has 4.62 crore voters

The final number of voters eligible to exercise their franchise in the State for the April 17 Lok Sabha polls is out at last. Karnataka has as many as 4,62,11, 844 on electoral roll as on March 26, the last date for enrolment in the voters’ list.

Addressing a press conference in Bangalore on Tuesday, Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, Anil Kumar Jha, said the total includes 40,729 voters from the defence services who can exercise their franchise through postal ballots. There are 2.35 crore males, 2,26 crore females and 3,957 “others” in the voters’ list.

As many as 15.27 lakh voters have been added to the voters list from January 2014 till the publication of the final rolls. Bangalore North Lok Sabha constituency has the highest number of voters (23.99 lakh) and Udupi-Chikmagalur the lowest (13.86 lakh), Jha said. 

The voters to population ratio in the State stands at 71.98 per cent compared to 69.21 per cent during the Assembly polls of 2013.  The ratio has increased by 2.7 percentage points, which is quite significant, Jha said. The female-male ratio is 960:1000 compared to 958:1000 in 2013.

As many as 11 constituencies will have more than one ballot unit as the number of candidates in fray is above 15. These include Bidar, Koppal, Haveri, Dharwad, Davangere, Tumkur, Mandya, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar. Like in the Assembly polls last year, the polling will be between 7 am and 6 pm.

Jha said that 8,030 kg of jaggery had been seized in Dharwad and 2,022 sarees in Chikkaballapur. In all, 435 candidates including 20 women are in the fray from 28 LS constituencies in the State.