Election is being held for 223 segments in the 224-member lower house of Karnataka Assembly. Polling in Periyapatna, in Mysore district, was postponed to May 28 following the death of the BJP candidate.

There are 2,939 candidates in fray, including 170 women. The poll started at 7.00 a.m this morning. Over 4 crore 36 lakh voters will take part in 52,000 polling booths across the state.

Elaborate security arrangements have been made to ensure free and fair elections. As many as 9,954 polling booths are identified as hyper sensitive. Counting would take place on May 8.