BENGALURU: Cutting across party lines, senior leaders, including former Chief Ministers and former Prime Minister, are giving special attention to the four big seats in Bengaluru. Of the 15 assembly constituencies going to bypolls, four are in Bengaluru, which is more than 25%. However, all the four seats are not BJP base, so, leaders are leaving no stone unturned to capture these pockets.
In the next ten days, at least seven former CMs, including former PM HD Devegowda, Siddaramaiah, HD Kumaraswamy, DV Sadananda Gowda, SM Krishna, Jagadish Shettar, Veerappa Moily, will campaign in Bengaluru. Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa will also be a part of it.
As the nomination withdrawal process ended on Thursday, the actual campaign kicked off on Friday.
Mahalakshmi Layout constituency was greeted with the presence of three former CMs on the same day. While former CM and senior JDS leader H D Kumaraswamy campaigned in Mahalakshmi Layout, former CM and leader of Oppostion Siddaramiah batted for their candidates at Yeshwantpur and Mahalakshmi Layout. Union Minister and former CM D V Sadananda Gowda, who was in Mahalakshmi Layout, interacted with people in a park.
Yediyurappa, who is starting his campaign from Saturday and will continue till the next ten days, has reserved four days for Bengaluru alone. “Winning Bengaluru seats makes a huge difference for us, so the CM, senior ministers, DyCM and even Union Ministers are putting efforts here,’’ said a BJP leader.
In Congress, only Siddaramaiah and Dinesh Gundu Rao are campaigning across all constituencies. However, former Union Minister Rehman Khan, former speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, former DyCM G Parameshwara will campaign in the next few days. “Unlike BJP, we do not have senior leaders. At present, three of our leaders joining BJP has created a vacuum. We do not want BJP to win all four seats as we have good chances in Shivajinagar. We are also focusing on Bengaluru,’’ said Congress sources.