The voting for the assembly elections ended on Wednesday with a 69.95 voter turnout. The counting of the votes will be held on May 13

Hours before the counting for the Assembly elections in Karnataka starts, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai exuded confidence that Bharatiya Janata Party will return to power in the state while Congress general secretary in-charge Communications Jairam Ramesh said that BJP's defeat in Karnataka will open Delhi's door for Congress in 2024.

Meanwhile, both parties have started back-to-back meetings with their leaders to devise strategies ahead of the results.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) DK Shivakumar on Friday held a meeting with party president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in Bengaluru.

"Sometimes exit polls succeed and sometimes fail. Exit polls have their own theory, I don't believe them* We don't go by those samples, my sample size is too high and in that, we will have a comfortable majority. We will form our government with a majority. I do not know about JD(S), let them take their own call. I don't have any backup plan, my only plan is that the Congress party will come to power," he told ANI.

Congress's Karnataka president DK Shivakumar on Wednesday, had said he did not believe in the exit poll results, which predicted a hung Assembly while putting his party ahead, adding that they will cross the 146-seat mark.

"Exit polls have their own theory. We do not go by those samples, my sample size is too high and in that, we will have a comfortable majority. I do not know about JDS, let them take their own call. I do not have any backup plan, my only plan is that the Congress party will come to power," DK Shivakumar said ANI.