BENGALURU: “It doesn’t matter who the candidate is. The party comes first and Bangalore South will vote only for BJP,” said Shakuntala Vishwanath, a member of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha. She was part of the euphoria that was witnessed at party national president Amit Shah’s rally in Banashankari earlier this week. However, with three out of eight assembly segments under their belt in Bangalore South parliamentary seat, Congress is hopeful of sucking this euphoria dry.
In coalition with the JD(S), Congress hopes that its combined vote share and possible disgruntlement against BJP’s surprise candidate Tejasvi Surya will take it past the halfway mark in the seat that has been BJP’s bastion since 1991.
SC/ST and OBC voters have become game-changers in Bangalore South that has predominantly been a Vokkaliga and Brahmin dominant constituency. While the BJP with its fresh face Tejasvi is banking heavily on the constituency’s unflinching loyalty to the party along with PM Modi’s popularity, Congress hopes to consolidate minority and Vokkaliga votes in absolute and OBC and SC/ST votes in partial with the support of JD(S). “The sum of combined Congress and JD(S) votes in the last assembly elections in all eight segments is 5,65,548 while BJP received 5,70,949. The difference is barely 5,401,” said Ramalinga Reddy, BTM Layout MLA. The Reddy-strongman, who has great influence over the Vokkaliga votes in the constituency, is confident of turning the disgruntlement against Tejasvi in Congress’ favour to bridge the gap.
Congress and JD(S), however, chose to compare the vote share of 2018 Assembly polls and not 2014 Lok Sabha polls when Ananth Kumar swept clean all eight segments. BJP’s vote share in 2014 stood at a staggering 56.8%, whereas Congress and JD(S) combined vote share was 38.67%.
“Tejaswini Ananth Kumar would have made a good candidate but Tejasvi is young and deserves a chance. As for BK Hariprasad, is he any different from any outsider who is para-dropped?” asked Suryakanth M, a voter in Jayanagar.
Given his public debates and open discourse on Hindutva, Tejasvi’s extreme right stand makes minority voters in the constituency uncomfortable. “People from the community prefer Congress simply because it is difficult to presume that a person with such extreme views can ever represent the minority community passionately,” said Farhana M, a 33-year-old resident of Padmanabhanagar.