Congress has not won a Lok Sabha seat in Bengaluru city after 1999. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won all the Lok Sabha seats in the city since 2004 — two seats in 2004, and three since 2009 after delimitation of seats in 2008.
This has been the case even when Congress outdid the BJP in Assembly polls thrice — 2004, 2013 and 2018 — indicating a schism in voter’s preferences in Bengaluru for the State and Centre.
A senior Congress leader from the city who has unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha polls twice said the city has preferred BJP for Lok Sabha even when Congress found favour in the Assembly elections. “The best example was the 2004 polls. Both Assembly and parliamentary polls were held on the same day, in the same booth. While Congress won seven out of eight Assembly seats in Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency, BJP won the Lok Sabha seat. This essentially means the same voter voted for a Congress MLA and a BJP MP, not even a minute apart,” he said.
South citadel
In fact, Bengaluru South was one of the first Lok Sabha seats to be won by the BJP in Karnataka in 1991 along with Mangalore (now Dakshina Kannada), Bidar and Tumakuru seats. Of them, the party has retained Bengaluru South and Dakshina Kannada seats since then.
“In 2009, when the United Progressive Alliance did very well in all urban centres across India, BJP won all three seats in Bengaluru. Even when we fielded an icon (Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani) in 2014, BJP won that seat. BJP has always fielded outsiders in Bengaluru North seat, and yet won it consistently since 2004,” the Congress leader said.
A senior Congress minister from the city said that voters in Bengaluru had generally tilted right since the 1990s. The Congress had been able to break this only in Assembly polls due to a strong slate of candidates and anti-incumbency. “It is a fact that we do not have a strong slate of candidates for the Lok Sabha seats in Bengaluru. We have never had stable faces for each of these constituencies. We have changed candidates in almost every election,” he said.
Bengaluru’s senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly R. Ashok claimed that the issue of national security, relatively less corruption during NDA government tenures in Delhi, and the development plank of the party has historically struck a chord with the city’s voters. “Modi factor has also boosted BJP and held us steady in the city since 2014,” he said.
When BJP was drubbed in the 2023 Assembly polls in Karnataka, the party increased its vote share by 5.4% compared to its performance in 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had led roadshows, collectively adding up to 36 km, in Bengaluru in the run-up to the polls.
Why Congress is hopeful this time
However, leaders of Congress, presently leading the government in Karnataka, said the elections this time could throw a surprise.
“Electoral patterns will always be broken some day, and new patterns emerge. We are confident that this time, there is a Narendra Modi fatigue and anti-incumbency against BJP MPs in the city. For instance, in the Bengaluru North seat, there are rumblings within the BJP. Our feedback is that we stand a chance to win two seats this time,” said Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda whose Assembly constituency is in north Bengaluru.
Another senior minister Ramalinga Reddy, whose daughter and former Jayanagar MLA Sowmya Reddy, is the party’s candidate in Bengaluru South seat, said, “People seem to be catching up with the lies and maladministration of Narendra Modi.”
