The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained its hold on Bangalore by winning 12 seats and restricting the loss to just five of the 17 seats it won in 2008.
Barring the failed attempt by Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) candidate Shobha Karandlaje to mount a challenge in Rajajinagar, the 28 constituencies saw a three-way fight among the BJP, the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S). Of these 28 constituencies, 20 were retained by the sitting MLAs of the three major political parties.
The BJP’s loss of its five seats to the Congress could not consolidate the latter’s position in the City.
The Congress itself faced the heat by losing two of its seats in the heart of Bangalore to JD-S. It is said that the two losers from the Congress party—B Prasanna Kumar (four-time MLA) from Pulakeshinagar and N L Narendra Babu (two-time MLA) from Mahalakshmi Layout—lost their seats due to their overconfidence. Congress workers state that the two seats were virtually conceded to the JD-S.
Further, losing face by being unable to mount a proper challenge, the Congress figured in the third position in the past three decades in Basavanagudi. The Congress candidate, Prof B K Chandrashekar, was able to garner only 21,588 votes as opposed to the whopping 43,883 votes by sitting L A Ravi Subramanya of the BJP. Subramanya is a sitting MLA.
The five seats which were lost by the BJP include those of Chickpet, wherein sitting MLA Hemachandra Sagar did not contest; Yeshwanthpura wherein their sitting MLA Shobha Karandlaje joined the Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP); Rajarajeshwari Nagar to a first-time Congress aspirant and BBMP Corporator Munirathna Naidu; Anekal and KR Puram due to the large wave of anti-incumbency in the rural belt against the BJP. The biggest loss for the BJP stemmed from the KR Puram constituency which saw the voters turn against sitting MLA Nandiesha Reddy on account of water woes which persisted over the past five years of the BJP tenure.
In the fight between the Congress and BJP, who were attacking each other on the “maladministration” at the Centre and State, the JD-S drove home its advantage by grabbing two more seats. Meanwhile, the victory margin for the sitting MLAs who retained their seats suggests that citizens had already decided to vote for their candidates, based on their past performance and not their party origins.
Almost all the 20 sitting MLAs retained their seats with a victory margin of no less than 10,000 votes. Further, the new faces, barring the Hebbal constituency where the votes were split, received a rousing welcome to the seat of power by their constituency voters who were seeking a change. The biggest margin by which a fresh face was elected in the City, Munirathna Naidu from the Congress, was 28,000 votes.
