After high-pitch elections campaigning and record voting in Karnataka elections, the result day has arrived. All eyes are on BJP, Congress & JDS. However, as per early trends it is Congress who have their noses at the front. After nearly three hours of counting votes, the Congress was flirting with the halfway-mark in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly. The incumbent BJP was closing the gap which the Congress had opened up in early leads, while the Deve Gowda-led JD(S) held on to third place. Undeterred by the volatility in trends, jubilant Congress workers erupted into celebrations at party offices, confident of their victory and the prospect of forming the next government in the pivotal southern state.
As per ECI, 50 Seats in K'taka are currently having less than a 1,000 votes margin. Exit polls have predicted an edge for the Congress in a close contest with the BJP. Others have predicted a hung House. In such a scenario, the JD(S) could play kingmaker. The outcome in Karnataka could boil down to how the battle for some key constituencies play out. After a high-decibel campaign during which all three key contestants - the incumbent BJP, the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) - went at each other and pulled out stops and heavyweight campaigners to draw voters. However, a number of big names are leading and trailing in the election fight so far. The ruling BJP is hoping to retain the only southern state where it has held power, and in the process, reverse the trend since the 1980s of Karnataka voting out its incumbent government. The Congress, on the other hand, aims to win its first major state since December 2018, when it defeated its arch-rival in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. According to most exit polls, the Congress will either be the single-largest party or win just about enough nu