BJP's Tejasvi Surya vs Cong's Sowmya Reddy: Prestigious Bengaluru South seat gears up for keen clash

BJP MP and youth wing chief Tejasvi Surya (R) will face a stiff challenge from Sowmya Reddy of the Congress.

Bengaluru South Lok Sabha seat is set to witness a keen contest between BJP MP and youth wing chief Tejasvi Surya and Sowmya Reddy of the Congress.

Both the leaders, relatively young when it comes to politics, are vying for supremacy in the prestigious seat that will vote in the second phase on April 26.

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Bengaluru South, which has eight assembly constituencies under it, has been a BJP stronghold for over three decades.

Since 1977, Congress has won the seat just once when former chief minister late R Gundu Rao emerged victorious in the 1989 elections.

The constituency has a sizeable population of Brahmins and has mostly been represented by leaders from the community.

In 2024, Congress is trying hard to breach the BJP bastion, with senior leaders like chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy CM DK Shivakumar throwing their weight behind Sowmya.

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Sowmya, 41, is the daughter of transport minister Ramalinga Reddy and therefore has a strong political lineage. She has previously served as an MLA in Jayanagar. In the previous assembly elections in 2023, she lost by a wafer-thin margin of just 16 votes.

But this time, she is determined to give BJP a tough fight.

Sowmya has been heavily banking on the five guarantees of Congress during campaigning. She highlighted how the 'Shakti' guarantee has allowed women to travel in non-luxury government buses across the state free of cost.

The Congress leader also touched upon the four other guarantees such as 'Gruha Lakshmi', 'Gruha Jyoti', 'Yuva Nidhi' and 'Anna Bhagya'.

On the other hand, Tejasvi is banking on his performance and the development work undertaken by him in the last 5 years. "I've worked to improve Bengaluru's infrastructure and monitor the implementation of welfare schemes. Our constituency now boasts the highest number of Jan Aushadhi Kendras - 14 in 2019 to 132 now, benefiting over 2 lakh customers every month," he told Moneycontrol in an interview earlier this month.

In March too, he had released his five-year report card, highlighting how he took multiple initiatives, such as the opening of two new phases of the Metro.

Moreover, since Tejasvi is a Brahmin and Sowmya an OBC, both the candidates are also relying on support from their respective communities.

(With inputs from PTI)