The ‘exact poll’ of the Karnataka assembly elections will be known in a few hours after the 224-member House’s vote-counting is completed. Early trends are showing a tight fight between Congress and BJP and within two to three hours it will be obvious whether the Congress takes the state or the BJP returns to power, defying previous electoral precedent. A third possibility is that there will be a hung assembly if both national parties fall short of a majority despite having won a large number of votes. In this case, they would have to turn to the Janata Dal (Secular), a crucial third party from the region, and submit to its directives in exchange for a piece of the power.