Chamarajanagar:  Chamarajanagar (SC) Lok Sabha Constituency, which recorded a high voter turnout of 75.22 percent in Thursday’s polling, has kept all the candidates guessing.

With polls over, people are discussing among themselves on which candidate will benefit from the high voter turnout.

Sitting Congress MP R. Dhruvanarayan is seeking re-election for the third time, while senior politician V. Sreenivasa Prasad is the BJP candidate and Dr. K. Shivakumar is contesting on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket. However, at the outset, the battle seems to be only between R. Dhurvanarayan and Sreenivasa Prasad.

The Chamarajanagar LS seat, a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved Constituency, has eight assembly segments with Congress MLAs representing four assembly segments, BJP two and the JD(S) and BSP one each.

As the Congress and JD(S) are running the coalition Government in the State, both the parties have entered into a seat sharing deal, according to which the Chamarajanagar LS seat went to the Congress.

Now with polls over, the leaders and workers of the Congress, BJP and BSP are busily engaged in their own calculations on the number of votes they would get in each assembly segment.

While the Congress is banking on leads in Varuna, Hanur, H.D. Kote and T. Narasipur assembly segments, with the first three having Congress MLAs and T. Narasipur MLA from the JD(S), the BJP is hopeful of leads in four other assembly segments- Gundlupet, Chamarajanagar, Nanjangud and Kollegal. Interestingly, the BSP candidate Dr. K. Shivakumar is banking heavily on Kollegal assembly segment, which is represented by N. Mahesh, the lone BSP MLA in the State. While Congress leaders claim that the victory of the party candidate R. Dhruvanarayan is certain, BJP leaders see the triumph of veteran party leader V. Sreenivasa Prasad.

There are a total of 10 candidates in the fray, and the fate of the candidates has been sealed in the EVMs, which will be opened when the counting takes place on May. 23.

It is also said that the victory or defeat of either the Congress or BJP candidate will depend on the number of votes the BSP candidate will get.

Meanwhile, a day after polling, the candidates were in a relaxing mood on Friday. Coalition candidate R. Dhruvanarayan of the Congress spent the day by taking rest at his residence in Mysuru and talking to party leaders and workers who called on him.

BJP candidate V. Sreenivasa Prasad too was confined to his Jayalakshmipuram residence in Mysuru, where he received inputs from party workers on the voting pattern in each assembly segment.

BSP candidate Dr. Shivakumar after taking rest for sometime at his Mysuru home, left for Sosale in T. Narasipur taluk late on Friday afternoon to take part in a fair.

By Siddalingaswamy