BANGALORE: The city has overwhelmingly endorsed Narendra Modi, voting BJP candidates to its three seats.
The Modi wave has blown away even Nandan Nilekani, a ‘surefire’ candidate chosen by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. In 2009, the BJP had won all three seats, but not with such huge margins.
H N Ananth Kumar, who makes it to Parliament for the sixth consecutive term, defeated Nilekani by over 2.28 lakh votes. Political analysts had expected a close contest, but that was not to be. Prominent writers, such as Jnanpith awardees Girish Karnad and U R Ananthamurthy, and top IT professionals had supported Nilekani.
This time, Ananth Kumar did better than in his previous elections. In 2009, he had won by a margin of 37,612. “I knew this time it would be a comfortable win,” he said, after the results were announced. He led in all eight Assembly segments in Bangalore South.
In Bangalore Central, young Rizwan Arshad contested against sitting MP
P C Mohan, but lost by a margin of over 1.37 lakh votes. “The Modi wave has clearly worked all over the country,” Mohan said.
Sources said some voters from the minority communities had supported the BJP. The Christians were unhappy with Congress as it had not given even them a single ticket. Many Muslims were sore after the party denied a ticket to veteran leader C K Jaffer Sharief.
C Narayanaswamy was expected to give a tough fight to BJP’s Sadananda Gowda in Bangalore North, but he lost by a margin of over 2.29 lakh.
Sources in BJP say Siddaramaiah’s aggressive campaign, targeting Modi, helped the party consolidate its votes.
Rural Exception
In Bangalore Rural, Congress candidate D K Suresh managed to get re-elected by defeating BJP’s Muniraju Gowda by a margin of over 2.30 lakh votes.
Two Assembly segments from the city — Bangalore South and Rajarajeshwari Nagar — are part of the Bangalore Rural Parliamentary constituency.
It looks like voters from the two Assembly segments chose BJP, whose numbers added up to 4.21 lakh votes in this JD(S) bastion. JD(S) candidate R Prabhakar Reddy managed to win just 3.17 lakh votes.