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.
