Prominent personalities among early voters in K'taka

Many prominent personalities on Thursday exercised their franchise in 14 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies of Karnataka as voting got underway in the second phase of the parliamentary polls.

Among those who cast their vote were former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda, his son and chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, daughter-in-law and MLA Anitha Kumaraswamy and grandson Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who is contesting from Mandya constituency, former chief minister Siddaramaiah, titular Mysuru Maharaja Yaduveer Wadiyar and his wife Trisha.

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, union minister for statistics and programme implementation D V Sadananda Gowda and Kannada film actors Ramesh Arvind, Upendra, Ganesh, Kichcha Sudeep, Shubha Poonja, and Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy were also among the other prominent people who voted early this morning.

There was a huge turnout of voters since morning, which many called unprecedented.

"I've never missed exercising my vote ever since I became eligible to vote, but the enthusiasm this time is unprecedented. There is a huge turnout maybe because people are scared of the scorching summer and wanted to finish their duty in the morning itself," said actor Ramesh Arvind.

The polling is taking place in 30,164 polling stations in the 14 constituencies which has a voter population of 2.67 crore.

The next polling date for the remaining 14 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka is April 23.