Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency has always been a Congress bastion. Since 1967, the party has won 10 of the 14 elections held in the constituency. Both the Congress and the JD(S) are fighting hard to gain control over the constituency. More than party politics, it is a prestige battle between former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and Energy Minister D K Shivakumar.
There are eight Assembly segments in the constituency. In the 2013 Assembly polls, the Congress won in four segments, followed by the JD(S) three and the BJP one.The constituency is home to a large rural population. Going by caste equations, Bangalore Rural has a large number of Vokkaliga voters followed by SCs and minorities. Though the constituency had traditionally supported Congress, it voted for JD(S) in 1996 and BJP in 1998. Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda won from the constituency in a bypoll held in 2002, but in 2004, Tejaswini Sriramesh, a novice in politics, defeated Gowda. Kumaraswamy won from the constituency in 2009 polls, but resigned after he got elected to the Assembly from Ramanagaram.
In the 2013 bypolls, D K Suresh (Congress), brother of Minister D K Shivakumar, won against JD(S)-BJP sponsored candidate Anitha Kumaraswamy, who had lost in the Channapatna Assembly constituency. Shivakumar is taking personal interest to ensure the victory of his brother now. The Congress has an added advantage as C P Yogeshwar, who won on a Samajwadi Party ticket from Channapatna, joined the Congress recently and has been campaigning for it in the constituency. JD(S) has fielded R Prabhakar Reddy, a realtor, who contested unsuccessfully from Bangalore South Assembly constituency in 2013. The AAP has fielded Ravikrishna Reddy.