With only three days left for voting to begin in the two-phase polling in Karnataka in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, campaigning in Bengaluru South Constituency is on in full swing.
Voters in this constituency have to choose between 'Modi ki guarantee' or the Congress' five guarantees, for democracy, and against Hindutva and the injustice meted out to Karnataka by the Centre.
The Congress and BJP-JD(S) alliance candidates and workers are busy holding conventions, road shows, animated debates, and cornering early morning walkers in parks, holding discussions over coffee in hotels etc. In this 'ubranised' constituency, which is seeing a fierce battle between firebrand BJP candidate, Tejasvi Surya and Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy, the election fever is clearly visible.
Tough challenge
Some experts feel that the 41-year-old Reddy, who is the daughter of former minister Ramalinga Reddy and looking to make a comeback after her narrow Assembly poll defeat last year, is posing a tough challenge to the incumbent MP Surya. While other political observers feel that Surya, who is known for his controversial remarks, will romp home carried by the Modi wave.
Moreover, spread across eight Assembly constituencies, Bengaluru South has been a BJP bastion since 1991. In the 2023 Assembly elections, the BJP won five seats and Congress three. In fact since 1977, Congress has won here only once when former Chief Minister late R Gundu Rao emerged victorious in the 1989 elections.
Rise of Tejasvi Surya
BJP candidate Tejaswi Surya is known for his rhetoric. The 33-year-old Surya, who is the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president, had been conducting talks by right-wing intellectuals, largely affiliated with RSS and 'Sangh Parivar' in his constituency.
This lawyer by profession entered the Lok Sabha for the first time at the age of 28.
He was the 'lucky' person to fill the vacancy with the sudden death of Ananth Kumar, an influential politician, who had represented Bengaluru South. Ananth Kumar was one of the few politicians who had actively helped to establish the BJP base in Karnataka.
Eyebrows were raised when Ananth Kumar's wife Tejaswini, who is well-known in the field and a household name due to her social work, was not given a ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Tejaswini was sulking after the BJP announced a political greenhorn like Tejasvi Surya as the Bengaluru South candidate and this stirred up a controversy for a while.
Victory in 2019
However, with the support of the Sangh Parivar and Modi's charisma, Surya won. He became the youngest BJP MP in the Lok Sabha after defeating Congress veteran BK Hariprasad by a massive margin of more than 3.3 lakh votes in 2019.
Five years have passed and Surya is now ostensibly being judged on his five-year performance and his 'contribution' to the constituency. For Surya, who is considered as Modi's blue-eyed boy, it is a prestige issue to win this seat for a second term.
However, he faces challenges like the Guru Raghavendra Cooperative Bank scam in which a number of senior citizens lost their deposits and the delay in the Metro expansion and other projects. Though Surya claimed he managed to get back some money for the depositers, he was recently heckled at an election meeting and forced to leave.
Sowmya Reddy's spirited fight
Sowmya Reddy, the Congress party candidate for this constituency, is the current general secretary of the All India Mahila Congress and has studied at the New York Institute of Technology.
She had represented Jayanagar Constituency in the Karnataka legislative assembly from 2018 to 2023. However, she was defeated in the 2023 assembly elections by a very narrow margin. Reddy who is putting up a spirited fight against Surya, is not a political novice.
Her father Ramalingareddy, who is the transport minister in the current Congress government, is a powerful Congress leader. There is not a single Congress worker who will oppose him. Many in the Congress feel that Soumya Reddy lost in the last Assembly election by a margin of only 19 votes due to technical reasons.
"My daughter almost won the Vidhan Sabha elections. But the counting of rejected votes worked against her. The dispute has now reached the court, I can't talk much about it," said minister Ramalinga Reddy.
Sowmya is fighting this election to 'save democracy, the social fabric of the country and the Constitution'. She has also been pushing the Congress guarantees like free bus ride for women. In her view, the voters in the constituency are looking for a change and are unhappy with the 'missing' MP.
Bengaluru South constituency
Bangalore South Zone came into existence in 1977, after the Emergency was lifted. "In this election, we face another kind of undeclared state of emergency," observed a Kannada writer, who preferrred to be anonymous. However, this emergency is 'invisible', he added.
Lok Sabha Speaker Justice K S Hegde, TR Shamanna, VS Krishnaiyar, R Gundurao, renowned economist Ventakagirigowda, Ananth Kumar, an influential minister at the Center have all represented the constituency. Ananth Kumar had represented the constituency six times in a row.
The total number of voters in Bengaluru South Constituency is 23,41,759.
In the last Lok Sabha election, this constituency saw a record low voter turnout of 53.7 percent. The assembly constituencies covered by this constituency are Govindarajanagar, Vijayanagar, Chikkapet, Basavanagudi, Padmanabhanagar, Bommanahalli, Jayanagar, BTM Layout.
Surya vs Sowmya
Surya is banking heavily on 'development and Modi Nambala' chant. While Sowmya, who was once an MLA from Jayanagar, is seeking votes on the basis of the development works she had done as an MLA and the guarantee schemes of the state government.
But the peculiarity of this constituency, is that it has favoured the BJP for the last eight elections.
"We will win this constituency for the ninth time," said Jayanagar MLA K C Ramamurthy confidently. But, some voters are unhappy. Nagaraja Rao, a Basavanagudi resident felt that Surya did not listen to people's hardships.
Soumya's challenges are plenty. She was selected as a candidate at the last minute and nominated for a constituency which has always been a BJP bastion. In the 2019 election, Surya won by a huge margin of 3,31,192 votes by defeating Rajya Sabha MP and veteran Congress leader BK Hariprasad. Surya secured 7,39,229 votes, while BK Hariprasad won 4,08,037 votes.
"Soumya will create a double record if people bless her," said her father Ramalingareddy.
"The first will be for ending the BJP's dominance of the constituency and preventing them from winning for the ninth time. Secondly, she will become the first woman MLA to represent the Bengaluru South constituency," he pointed out.
This constituency is unique in that in the 17 Lok Sabha elections held in the last 73 years, not a single woman candidate has been elected.
Electoral promises
Sowmya has promised that if she gets elected as an MP, she has prepared "a green map of the projects" to be implemented in Bengaluru South constituency. "If I become an MP, I will prove that Bengaluru is a garden city. I am committed to building a green Bengaluru South. I have every hope of winning in this constituency," she said.
Meanwhile, Tejaswi Surya, who maintained that he is not affected by an anti-incumbency wave, has promised to work getting permission for the pending second phase of the Metro, 2A and 2B, completing the work of the suburban railway project and finalising the ring road work.
Completely confident of winning, he parroted: "People have faith in Modi's guarantee".
This article was originally published in The Federal Karnataka.