Parties gear up for Bengaluru playoff before Karnataka final

The BJP and Congress are itching for a fight as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections will be a litmus test for all lawmakers in the city ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls.

MLAs are key in mobilising support for their respective parties during the BBMP polls.

There are 27 Assembly constituencies within Bengaluru’s municipal limits. With 15 MLAs, the BJP has an advantage over the Congress, which has 11. The JD(S) holds just one segment (Dasarahalli). Also, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s Cabinet has seven ministers representing the city.

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“We are ready for the elections. Bengaluru is the BJP’s stronghold,” Revenue Minister R Ashoka, one of the BJP’s most influential leaders in Bengaluru, said. “We have completed our organisational exercises at the booth level. Our victory is certain,” he added.

Congress is equally confident. “We have our network, our MLAs and our defeated candidates,” Karnataka Congress working president Ramalinga Reddy, a former minister who started his political career as a councillor, said.

In the 2015 BBMP elections, the BJP won 100 out of 198, followed by the Congress with 76, JD(S) 14 with independents and others winning eight.

“After the recent five states’ elections, the BJP had some advantage. But, of late, the BJP’s wrongs have helped us, especially corruption issues,” Reddy said.

Notwithstanding the string of political setbacks the JD(S) is facing, former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy said his party will get seats on par with the BJP and Congress. “Our party is ready for the election. Even if the election is held immediately, we are ready. People have seen the fate of both national parties and are angry with them," he said.

The BJP and Congress face peculiar challenges.

In 2019, MLAs K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), ST Somashekhar (Yeshwantpur), Byrathi Basavaraj (KR Puram), Munirathna (Rajarajeshwari Nagar) jumped to BJP along with some councillors loyal to them. They may pressurise the BJP to give tickets to their people, leaving the saffron party’s candidates in the cold.

The Congress, too, has to find winnable replacements for their councillors who switched sides.

Meanwhile, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been trying to build a base in the city since 2015. “AAP is ready to fight the elections. AAP is determined to win the BBMP elections with a vast majority. We have party leaders, workers and supporters in every ward,” AAP Karnataka convener Prithvi Reddy said, adding that citizens are frustrated with the BJP, Congress and JD(S).