Nagaland tops polling trends; Tripura records strong turnout

Nagaland maintained its lead in voter turnout during the ongoing Assembly bypolls with participation remaining highest by late morning while Tripura held on to second place with strong polling figures as of 11 amAs per official data from the Election Commission of India at 11 am the Koridang constituency in Nagaland recorded a significant 4106 per cent voter turnout the highest among all four seats Tripurarsquos Dharmanagar seat was not far behind posting a solid 3351 per cent turnoutBagalkot leads in turnout Davanagere South gains momentumMeanwhile Karnataka began witnessing a noticeable surge in voter participation compared to early morning trends Bagalkot emerged as the leading constituency in the state with 2783 per cent turnout while Davanagere South also improved considerably reaching 2201 per cent by late morningAccording to ECI data at 9 am Koridang 28 in Nagaland recorded a strong 1980 per cent turnout Dharmanagar 56 in Tripura followed with 1563 per cent placing second in early trends In Karnataka turnout was comparatively moderate with Bagalkot 24 at 1187 per cent and Davanagere South 107 at 901 per centVoting for byelections in Davanagere South and Bagalkot constituencies in Karnataka Koridang constituency in Nagaland and Dharmanagar constituency in Tripura began at 7 amCongress fields Umesh Meti Samarth Mallikarjun in Karnataka bypollsIn Karnataka the Congress has fielded Umesh Meti from the Bagalkot constituency and Samarth Mallikarjun as its candidate for the Davanagere South byelectionUmesh Meti is the son of late Congress leader Meti Hullappa Yamanappa HY Meti who represented the Bagalkot seat while Samarth Mallikarjun is the son of Karnataka minister SS MallikarjunThe BJP has fielded Veerabhadrayya Charantimath and Srinivas T Dasakariyappa from Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly constituencies respectivelyThe Bagalkot seat fell vacant following the death of HY Meti while Davanagere South fell vacant after the demise of Shamanur ShivashankarappaCongressBJP faceoff in Nagalandrsquos Koridang bypollIn Nagaland Congress candidate T Chalukumba Ao is pitted against Daochier I Imchen son of veteran BJP leader Imkong L Imchen for the Koridang seat byelectionT Chalukumba Ao had contested the 2023 Nagaland Assembly elections on a Janata Dal United ticket BJP State Council member Imchainba Jamir had withdrawn his candidature in favour of ImchenThe Koridang ST seat in Nagaland became vacant following the death of Imkong L ImchenIn Tripura the BJP has fielded Jahar Chakraborti as its candidate for the Dharmanagar seat against Congressrsquos Chayan Bhattacharjee Amitabha Datta of the Communist Party of India Marxist is also in the frayThe seat fell vacant following the demise of Tripura Speaker and fourtime MLA Biswa Bandhu SenThe vacant Assembly constituency in Goa was also scheduled to go to the polls today however the Bombay High Court cancelled the Ponda byelectionThe results of the byelections will be announced on May 4The ECI had earlier announced the schedule for byelections across eight Assembly constituencies in six states Polling for bypolls in Umreth Gujarat Rahuri and Baramati Maharashtra will take place on April 23 with the counting of votes scheduled for May 4With ANI inputs