Karnataka polls to be held in April

It is almost official. Karnataka will go to poll in April and not in February as was being sought by several political parties. The Election Commission has ruled out the possibility of holding elections in February in which 4.4 crore people from the state are expected to caste their vote.

The decision was taken by the Commission after holding discussions with the central observers who are working on the revised electoral list across the country.

The new electoral list will be published in the first week of January 2008. Following that there would be certain revisions and deletions following which the final list will be published. Taking these aspects into consideration, the Commission felt that it would not be feasible to hold elections in the month of Februrary 2008.

Another aspect that came in for consideration is that none of the government schools will be available at that time of the month thanks to the ongoing classes and also the examinations. Moreover, the election commission also utilizes the service of the teachers for election duty. The schools and the teachers will be available during the end of April and hence this would be the ideal period to hold the elections.

This is however bad news for the BJP as they were expecting early polls so that they could capitalize on the sympathy factor. The BJP is worried that if the polls are postponed then the sympathy factor would be wiped out. The JD-S too would have been hoping for an early election as it is finding it difficult to keep its legislators together.

Several JD-S legislators have expressed their desire to quit the party and the high command is finding it virtually impossible to keep them in the party. The only party that stands to gain is the Congress. The party is having a leadership crisis and unless and until that is sorted out, the party would not like to face the elections.