Bangalore: VIPs, including political leaders, celebrities and candidates were among the early voters who exercised their franchise in 14 Lok Sabha seats across central and southern Karnataka Thursday.
“Among the early voters were 86-year-old Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supremo HD Deve Gowda, his wife Chennamma, his two sons – Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and PWD Minister HD Revanna, their wives Anitha and Bhavani, and his grandsons Prajwal and Nikhil,” a poll official told IANS.
Other political leaders, who cast their ballot in the first two hours of voting between 7.00am and 9am, included Defence Minister and Rajya Sabha member from the state Nirmala Sitharaman, state Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao, Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah, BJP legislators BR Ashok and Suresh Kumar, and its Rajya Sabha member from the state Rajeev Chandrashekar.
The candidates, who voted early, included BJP’s Union Minister DV Sadananda Gowda and his Congress rival Krishna Byre Gowda in Bangalore North, BJP’s Tejsavi Surya and his Congress rival BK Hariprasad in Bangalore South, BJP’s PC Mohan and his Congress opponent Rizwan Arshad in Bangalore Central and former central Ministers in the previous UPA government KH Muniyappa and M Veerappa Moily.
Among the celebrities were Kannada superstar Sudheep, Tara, Shivaraj Kumar, Puneeth, Raghavendra, Darshan and Yash. Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murthy and her son Rohan Murthy also voted at Jayanagar in the Bangalore South seat.