Karnataka vote counting tomorrow; will Congress get majority on its own?

BANGALORE: With exit polls widely predicting a Congress victory in Karnataka Assembly elections, the burning question now is whether the party would gain majority on its own, as counting of votes is taken up tomorrow.

Some of these polls have put the Congress tally in the 224-member House at anywhere between 110 and 132, with the ruling BJP a distant loser; 113 seats would be required for majority.

Now, the recurrent question being asked is if there will be a situation where the Congress falls short of numbers. Some leaders of Karnataka Janatha Paksha ( KJP) of former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa have said in private that the party is ready to support a Congress government,if it comes to that.

But it's not clear if the Congress would accept KJP support, particularly as it had gone hammer and tongs against Yeddyurappa when he was the Chief Minister and faced corruption charges. The Congress is hoping that it would not have to depend on others to form government.

Prima facie, it appears that Yeddyurappa may have accomplished his task to decimate the BJP, by chipping away a few percentage of votes. In the last elections, the BJP had secured nearly one per cent votes less than Congress but still managed to bag 30 seats more than it.

KJP's stance post the election-results is keenly watched as it's predicted to bag about only two dozen seats, at the most.