Bengaluru, December 30: The State Election Commission began the counting of votes of Karnataka gram panchayat elections 2020 from 8 am onwards. According to early trends, BJP leads in 7,220 seats, Congress in 5,172 and JD(S) in 2,503 at 3:30 pm. Negalur GP 1st ward candidate Channabasappa Bannimatti's son was injured as the car fell into a canal on Wednesday morning, according to reports.

The polls were held in the past week, through two phases and evoked a high turnout. This was the first electoral exercise such scale in the state after the outbreak of COVID-19. Stay tuned here for the trends, results and other updates of the panchayat polls.

The first round of elections was held on December 22, when a voter turnout of 80 percent was recorded. Over 3,000-gram panchayats spread across 117 talukas were contested in the first phase. The second round of elections, on December 27, saw voting in 2,709 panchayats, based in 109 talukas. Voter turnout in this phase was marginally higher at 80.71 percent. Rajasthan Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad Election Results 2020: BJP Wins 1,833 Seats, Congress Bags 1,713.

Cumulatively, a total of 72,616 seats were contested, spread across 5,728 villages. The number of candidates in the fray was stated to be 2,22,814 -- out o which around 8,100 were declared winner unopposed.

According to the SEC, nearly 2.94 lakh voters were eligible to vote in the elections. The polls covered nearly all the gram panchayats of the state. Out of the total 6,004, the voting was held in 5,762 gram panchayats. The polls were not announced for the remaining 242 panchayats for various reasons. Ballot papers were used for voting in all the poll-bound region except for the district of Bidar, where the electronic voting machines (EVMs) were used.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 30, 2020 02:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).