BENGALURU: Call it the ‘S’ jinx for the BJP in Bengaluru — entry into the Congress fortresses of Shanthinagar, Shivajinagar and Sarvajnanagar assembly segments continues to be full of hurdles, and where neither have Amit Shah’s strategies worked nor has the Modi magic. In fact, in 2018, then-BJP national president Amit Shah had taken part in a mega roadshow covering these three tricky constituencies, but the BJP failed to make any gains.
The Congress has been winning these constituencies for many years, with NA Haris, Rizwan Arshad and KJ George representing them respectively. The BJP has fielded former BBMP councillors N Chandra, Shivakumar and Padmanabha Reddy against them. Interestingly, these very constituencies vote for BJP during the Lok Sabha elections.
In 2018, Roshan Baig won Shivajinagar with 59,742 votes (55 per cent vote share), while Katta Subramanya Naidu of the BJP got 41.2 per cent vote share. In 2013 too, the vote share was similar -- the Congress candidate got 54.62 per cent, as against 32 per cent for the BJP candidate. Shivajinagar has over 70,000 Muslim voters who largely vote for Congress, while some are neutral.
There is a significantly large number of Tamil voters, who are also not in favour of the BJP. In the 13 elections, including one bypoll, held in Shivajinagar constituency since 1967, BJP won twice, in 1999 and 2004, JDS won twice, and Congress was victorious the remaining nine times.
In Shanthinagar too, Congress candidate Haris got close to 50 per cent of votes in 2018, while BJP candidate Vasudevmurthy got 34 per cent. In 2013, Congress got 52 per cent and the BJP candidate got 10 per cent. This segment has Muslim and Christian voters, besides Tamilians, whose voting pattern points towards the Congress. This constituency too has seen 12 assembly polls, of which Congress won nine, BJP one, Janata Party two and JDS one.
The story in Sarvajnanagar is similar, with Congress MLA George getting over 1 lakh votes (around 62 per cent vote share), while the BJP candidate got only 31 per cent. The constituency, formed in 2008, has seen four elections, and all were won by the Congress.
Shivajinagar and Shanthinagar form part of the Central Business District, while Sarvajnanagar houses a few IT companies. People from other parts of Bengaluru who come here to work, often complain about road infrastructure, with potholes and traffic jams being the common grouses. Both segments have slum pockets which have not been addressed for many years. It connects Bengaluru West and Bengaluru South to Bengaluru East.
As per the latest voters’ list, Shivajinagar has 1.94 lakh eligible voters, Shanthinagar has 2.22 lakh voters and Sarvajnanagar has 3.66 lakh voters.