Mathihalli Madan Mohan Senior Journalist and Columnist Hubli 580032 Mobile: 94480-74872 (Attn Mr. Guruprasad) First time voters hold balance For ENARADA-  (41)             Hubli, 16th Apr 2014 A record number of newly enrolled first time voters and the political debutant Am Admi Party (AAP) hold all the aces in the political battle for ballots between   the Congress and BJP   for the 28 loksabha seats in Karnataka, for which the poll will take place on Thursday the 17th April. .Karnataka has witnessed unusual flurry of enrolment in the electoral rolls, with record number of record number of 25 lakh being registered within one year, of which 15 lakhs walked in within three month period preceding the polling day. The average increase of voters for all the 28 loksabha seats from Karnataka is around 90,000, the highest being 2.74 lakh in Bangalore North to  51.000 in Kanara parliamentary constituencies.  Barring ten parliamentary constituencies, where each of them had a lead of over one lakh votes over other in 2013 assembly elections, the differences between the BJP and Congress comes within the ambit of the average increase in voters in at least 14 parliamentary constituencies. Whatever may be the poll turn out; this is one segment of voters who would not be missing the maiden opportunity to cast votes, since they have deliberately enrolled themselves for the purpose. If the new voters turn out to be part of the undercurrent of Modi wave in Karnataka, the balance will tilt in favour of the BJP enabling to retain the same number of 19 seats  (plus or minus one) it had won  five years ago, notwithstanding the  reverses it had suffered in the 2013 assembly election. If, on the other hand, they are part of the Kejriwal phenomenon who has proved that higher voter turnout can bring political changes, and plump for AAP, which is an underdog in the Karnataka electorate, whose presence has been hardly taken cognisance by the media, then nothing may happen to Congress but the BJPs game of raking maximum seats from Karnataka gets spoiled. The question of new voters veering towards the Congress simply does not arise, since they are known to be basically antiestablishment.  Moreover in Karnataka, the anti incumbency factor operates against the Congress at two level, the Centre and the state, with  the one year old Siddaramaiah government hardly doing anything to convert the negative votes into positive votes for Congress. All along, BJP was the only political alternative available to the new voters in Karnataka, which happened in the three assembly elections of 199, 2004, ad 2008 and 2009 loksabha elections. (2013 assembly elections was a little different. The BJP got its quota of increase, while the other claimants like Congress and JDS got the benefit).  But this time, the entry of the AAP, in the electoral scene has put spanner in the proBJP proclivities of the new voters. Besides the flurry in the enrolment is a product of the Kejriwal phenomenon of Delhi and hence AAP cannot be treated as an unknown political entity.  And hence the claimants for attention of the new voters have been two instead of BJP being exclusive recipient of attention in the past. On the basis of the political balance evident in the 2013  assembly, elections,   the Congress has a lead in as many as  16, the BJP in 10 and JDS in 2  parliamentary constituencies and give plus or minus two, it can expect to chalk out victory in about 14 constituencies in the minimum, even without any additional support.  But if the new voters plump for BJP as it used to  be done in the past, nine of the constituencies where the Congress is in the lead, would undergo change to advantage of the BJP, which would help the party to retain the plus or minus one of the total of 19 seats it had held in 2009. But if the new voters turn their attention to AAP or even share their largesse equally between AAP and the BJP, the latter’s goose is cooked, with the Congress emerging as the party winning the largest number of seats, pushing the BJP to the second position. In the four parliamentary constituencies in and around Bangalore namely Bangalore Rural,  Bangalore North, Bangalore Central and Bangalore South, there is a total of 7.29 lakh new voters. If all of them gravitate towards the AAP, the BJP’s prospects of upstaging Congress will go awry and BJP’s national leader from Karnataka, Mr Ananthkumar will be in problem.   The prospects of the new voters looking towards the JDS, the  third political party in  frey are not bright, since  it is known that the party not a favorite of the voters in the parliament election and is prone to suffer from the erosion of support instead getting any accretion to its base. Standing based on 2013    Assembly   Performanance 2014 LS Polls Cong BJP* JDS Diff First time  voters Cong/BJP Lead 1Chikodi 399096 499999 87985 -100903 BJP 58834 2Belgaum 307803 464431 102091 -156628 BJP 81472 3.Bagalko 503540 453274 82103 50266 Cong 77780 4Bijapur 371194 307765 240580 63429 Cong 95351 5Gulbarga 399302 400084 113668 -782 BJP 160328 6Raichur. 382354 327767 228635 54587 Cong 99226 7Bidar 275526 437370 170419 -161844 BJP 57837 8Koppal 404374 456898 144577 -52524 BJP 67754 9Bellary 337329 414420 109796 -77091 BJP 90932 10Haveri 500753 492937 36571 7816 Cong 91933 11Dharwad 327346 376749 155666 -49403 BJP 81532 12Kanara 298930 299420 212236 -490 BJP 51566 13Davangere 494372 410350 137820 84022 Cong 93253 14Shimoga 284321 408936 267730 -124615 BJP 73991 15UdupiChic 374814 366555 76338 8259 Cong 61165 16Hassan 395205 267696 480364 127509 JDS 85923 17DKanna 482896 471816 45888 11080 Cong 68412 18Chitradurga 505023 381359 200687 123664 Cong 77152 19Tumkur 274662 426572 416402 -151910 BJP 80245 20Mandya 347058 60103 542490 286955 JDS 94896 21Mysore 443463 288033 303172 155430 Cong 110059 22Chamarajnagar 382022 337877 198575 44145 Cong 58557 23BangRural 500947 304265 468468 196682 Cong 166128 24BangNorth 489864 369994 322666 119870 Cong 274763 25BangCent 324315 272642 131579 51673 Cong 175009 26BangS 411494 373589 130796 37905 Cong 214629 27Chikballapur 430793 261033 312080 169760 Cong 99039 28KOlar 313511 121160 368127 192351 Cong 88289 *Combined votes of BJP+KJP+BSRCong Source: Election Commission of India Eom 16th April 2014.