BENGALURU: With JDS leader AP Ranganath in the fray as NDA candidate for Bengaluru Teachers’ constituency in the Legislative Council, Leader of Opposition R Ashoka took to the campaign trail on Friday, meeting teachers and school management committee members to seek support for him.
Ashoka personally visited several schools in Padmanabhanagar assembly constituency, shaking hands and greeting teachers and committee members with namastes, and seeking votes for Ranganath. He described Ranganath as a candidate who would represent teachers’ interests and be their voice in the Council.
The outreach underscores the weight the BJP is putting on a seat that its ally, not the party itself, is contesting.
BJP national general secretary Harish D and state in-charge have also arrived in Karnataka, and party insiders say the central question is whether BJP-aligned voters will actually back a JDS nominee 100 per cent.
Graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies have small, opinionated electorates, where candidates’ personal networks, teacher associations and management lobbies often count for more than party loyalty.
Political analyst BS Murthy said, “Transferring votes between allies is never automatic, and in these constituencies one has to really see how effective it is. No one has a verified ‘strike rate’ for BJP-to-JDS vote transfer in these elections.
Any such figure would be an assumption or a clever guess, since there is no published data on how voters moved between the two parties who are traditionally rivals and have fought against each other in many elections in the past.
What should worry both parties is that it is a secret ballot. What can be said is that in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the alliance performed well in Old Mysuru, but the dynamics of a teachers’ constituency differs sharply from a general election.
If BJP cadres and supporters fail to back Ranganath, the setback would reflect on the alliance’s coordination, handing the Congress an opening and fuelling questions about how well the two parties work together on the ground in such elections where voters are spread across many MLA constituencies. A good result would suggest the partnership can hold up well for the upcoming state and LS polls.”