Bangalore: Hundreds of techies in India's silicon hub took a break from writing codes and logged on to electronic voting machines (EVMs) Saturday to cast their votes in the first phase of the Karnataka assembly election.

Though many of them did not show any hurry to vote, they turned up in good numbers in the afternoon to exercise their franchise. Clad in T-shirts and jeans or Bermudas, they queued up at the designated polling stations and waited patiently for their turn to press the green button on the EVMs, making a calculated choice of the candidate.

With the majority of about 1,500 IT firms located here closed for the weekend, the techies did not get an extra holiday but were glad they got an opportunity to have a say in the making of the next state government.

"Many of us decided to vote this time. Prior to the D-day, there has been a lot of discussion, online chats and exchange of views through e-mails on who to vote for and why. Our peers also advised us to go and vote if we want to have a government that delivers and tackles the infrastructure problems of this tech city," Murali Krishna, a 27-year-old software engineer with a multinational firm, told IANS emerging out of a polling booth in upscale suburb Koramangala.

A few techies were, however, upset to find their names missing from the electoral list though some of them had electoral photo identity cards.

"I registered my name with the Bangalore Bruhat Municipal Corporation (BBMP) ward in February and got an acknowledgement slip that I have been registered as a voter in the BTM assembly segment. Though I could not get a photo ID card in time, I came to vote with my PAN (permanent account number for income tax) card only to find my name missing in the electoral list," lamented Mohan Kumar, a chip design engineer with a semicon firm.