Karnataka: Elections for 7 MLC seats today
What's the story
Elections for seven seats of the Legislative Council will be held on Thursday. Voting began at 9:00am and will continue until 4:00pm in Vidhana Soudha. Eight candidates are contesting, including five from the ruling Indian National Congress (INC), two from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and one from Janata Dal-Secular (JDS). Notably, KPCC president BK Hariprasad is among the INC candidates.
Political debut
Shivakumar's 1st test as chief minister
These elections are a major test for Chief Minister DK Shivakumar as they are his first since taking office this month. He has fielded Vinay Karthik as the fifth candidate from his party. Each candidate needs 28 votes in the 222-member House to win a seat. The INC has 135 MLAs, the BJP has 63 (including Gangavathi MLA Gali Janardhan Reddy, who merged his party with the BJP), and the JDS has 18 MLAs.
Twitter Post
2 polling booths have been set up
#WATCH | Bengaluru, Karnataka: Elections for 7 seats of the Legislative Council to be held today. Voting will take place from 9 AM to 4 PM in Vidhana Soudha. Two polling booths have been set up to facilitate secret voting by MLAs. CCTV cameras have been installed both inside and… pic.twitter.com/WNJWQRSEqX
— ANI (@ANI) June 18, 2026
Election strategy
JDS also hopes to keep its flock together
The Congress is confident of winning four seats and hopes to win a fifth with the help of three independents and votes from expelled BJP MLAs ST Somashekar and Shivaram Hebbar. The JDS is also hoping to keep its flock together. To do this, they have put their MLAs at a resort in Devanahalli. GT Devegowda's son and Hunsur MLA GD Harish Gowda, who has allegedly strained his relationship with his father, issued the whip to party MLAs.
Election dynamics
Mock voting conducted to avoid invalid votes
The Congress and BJP held meetings at a private hotel and issued whips to all their MLAs. As it is a secret ballot, cross-voting cannot be ruled out. The Congress conducted mock voting on Wednesday to avoid invalid votes, with former chief minister Siddaramaiah and AICC General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala present.