Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Tejasvi Surya won by a significant margin of over 2.7 lakh votes against Congress candidate and former Jayanagar MLA Sowmya Reddy in the Bengaluru South constituency in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This will bring him his second consecutive term as a member of parliament in the Lok Sabha. Surya won by 750,830 votes, similar to his 2019 performance, but gained 60.1 percent vote share this time.
In Karnataka, BJP won in 17 out of 28 constituencies, Congress in 9 and Janata Dal (Secular) won in 2 constituencies respectively. BJP has also retained all the three Bengaluru constituencies of South, Central and North.
However, this was a miss on News18 Mega Exit Poll 2024, wherein the NDA, comprising BJP and Janata Dal (Secular), was projected to win about 23-26 seats out of the 28 constituencies in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, the Congress was expected to win 3-7 seats, a marginal improvement from its 2019 tally.
Election campaigns
Sowmya was previously the MLA for the Jayanagar constituency, which she narrowly lost in the 2023 assembly polls. The daughter of Karnataka’s Congress president and state transport minister Ramalinga Reddy, Sowmya is banking on the grand old party’s five guarantees, especially free bus travel for women and unemployment allowance for the youth.
Moreover, her campaign was also led by her father and is likely to fetch support from the Reddy community, which has influence in areas like Bommanahalli. Interestingly, both BJP leader and Union Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi held roadshows on April 23 in Bommanahalli.
For Surya, the JDS-BJP alliance, Modi's guarantees, his parliamentary performance, and support from the RSS and the Brahmin community were favourable factors. Bengaluru South has only elected Brahmin candidates, except in 1991 when K Venkatagiri Gowda (BJP) won from there.
BJP versus Congress
Bengaluru South has been a safe seat for the BJP, which the Congress has only won once since 1977 (R Gundu Rao in 1989).
In 2019, Surya had won with a lead of 3.3 lakh votes raking in 62.2 per cent vote share against Congress’ B.K. Hariprasad.
To be sure, even as Surya has built a national image, this time around there was discontent among depositors who lost money in the Guru Raghavendra Cooperative Bank scam. Voters were also unhappy over delays in the completion of the Electronics City Metro (Yellow Line).
While Sowmya was banking on highlighting Surya's alleged communal politics, lack of accessibility, and the potential to elect Bengaluru's first female MP, particularly among women voters.
Also read: Battle for Bengaluru: BJP looks to keep up winning streak; Cong banks on guarantees for breakthrough
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