Bengaluru: While Bengaluru’s polling percentage for the Lok Sabha elections was abysmally low, the turnout from the tinsel town was encouraging on Thursday.
Barring Puneeth Rajkumar, who has gone abroad with his family, all prominent figures of Sandalwood turned up before polling booths to cast their votes.
Puneeth’s brother Shivarajkumar along wife Geetha, Raghavendra and his wife Mangala, his two sons Vinay and Yuva Rajkumar voted.
Other prominent stars such as Kichcha Sudeepa and his wife Priya exercised their votes from a polling booth in J.P. Nagar. Both Darshan and Yash, who had actively campaigned for for Sumalatha Ambareesh, were seen voting along with their spouses.
Darshan waited in a long queue along with his wife Vijayalakshmi at a polling booth in the city before casting his vote.
Actor-turned-politician and Bengaluru Central independent candidate Prakash Raj was nostalgic as his polling booth happened to be in the same school where he had studied.
He said, “I got to vote in my school and in the very class room I sat 41 years ago. Simply nostalgic. Feeling blessed as I start a new journey towards new horizon.”
Other film stars such as Upendra and his wife Priyanka Upendra, Jaggesh and his wife, Anantnag, Arjun Sarja and his family, Ravichandran, Ragini Dwivedi, Aindrita Ray, Prem, Rakshita Prem, Pranitha, Ramesh Aravind, Amulya, Santhosh Ananndram, Ravishankar, Dhananjay, Harshika Poonacha, Dwarkish, Sonu Gowda, Duniya Vijay, Hariprriya, Sriimurali also exercised their franchise.
Hotels in the city offered either free or subsidised food to voters, who came to them after voting, with the indelible ink on their fingers to prove it. Many were seen making a beeline for the Nisarga Hotel on Nrupathunga Road to enjoy a free meal of butter dosa, kali dosa, sweets and juices. Among them were actor Ramesh Bhatt and actress Roopika.
