BANGALORE: Rural voters played a key role in Congress candidate D K Suresh’s victory in Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency.
The low voter turnout in urban areas helped the Congress to tide over the ‘Modi Wave’ in the constituency.
Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency has eight Assembly segments - Kunigal, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bangalore South, Anekal, Magadi, Ramanagaram, Kanakapura and Channapatna. It is unique in many ways. Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bangalore South and Anekal Assembly constituencies ares under Bangalore Urban, Ramanagaram, Kanakapura, Channapatna and Magadi come under Ramanagaram while Kunigal constituency is in Tumkur districts.
According to the data available with Election Commission, urban voters favoured BJP candidate Muniraju Gowda in Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bangalore South and Anekal constituencies. Just from these three assembly constituencies, Muniraju secured 3.26 lakh votes whereas Suresh got 2.52 lakh votes.
However, Muniraju received 94,649 votes from the remaining constituencies (non-urban voters) as against Suresh who got more than four lakh votes.
Thus, Suresh won the election by more than 2.31 lakh margin.
JD(S) candidate R Prabhakar Reddy, though did not get support from urban voters, got more voters than Muniraju in other segments. Interestingly, according to the polling per cent, Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bangalore South and Anekal Assembly constituencies have lowest voters turnout with 56.13 per cent, 54.22 per cent and 62.30 per cent respectively as against Kunigal, Magadi, Ramanagaram, Kanakapura and Channapatna Assembly constituencies which recorded 76.56, 78.76 , 77.55, 78.51 and 77.03 per cent polling respectively.
In 2009 Lok Sabha election, more urban voters had voted for BJP while the rural voters had favoured JD(S) candidate H D Kumaraswamy.
Congress candidate Tejaswini Gowda was in the third place.
Later, Kumaraswamy resigned and contested the Assembly election from Ramanagaram last year. Congress’ Suresh had won the subsequent byelection.
Political analyst Prof Harish Ramaswamy said the “Modi wave” has affected the whole country, including Karnataka.
“Despite this, strong non-BJP candidates have survived and won the election. This is how, the nine Congress candidates won the Lok Sabha in the State.
“Not just this, most of these non-BJP candidates, who won the election, have their roots in that constituency like D K Suresh is based in Kanakapura which falls under Bangalore Rural constituency. BJP would have won the seat if more urban voters had voted in the election,” Ramaswamy observed.