Karnataka election results 2019: Bengaluru stays constant to BJP

The Modi wave that has put BJP atop the podium in 25 of the 28 seats in Karnataka is the narrative for the state that holds good for its capital city as well. BJP has won all three urban Bengaluru seats with the rural one going to the Congress like in 2014.
In fact, historically, Bengaluru has been ahead of the state in embracing the BJP. The saffron party’s dominance precedes the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah era.Bengaluru’s date with BJP goes back to 1991, when K Venkatagiri Gowda, who wasn’t even a career politician, defeated R Gundu Rao, a sitting MP and a former Karnataka chief minister in Bengaluru South.
The continuing enchantment has many reasons. Harish Narasappa, co-founder Daksh, a civil society group that does research on governance and election-related aspects, says: “The city has a diverse demography which tends to support national parties when it comes to Lok Sabha elections. And, among the national parties, they pick the one that appears stronger, which the BJP has been since the late 1990s.”
Revathy Ashok, CEO, B.PAC, a non-partisan citizen’s group that works to improve governance with Bengaluru’s elected representatives, attributed the success of BJP to the quality of its candidates, while pointing out that the Congress is seen as changing its candidates constantly, or fielding non-serious ones.
“Also, the modern outlook of BJP and its candidates is another factor that appeals to different communities like startups, sportspersons, aspirational voters and others, alike. The other parties don’t have this factor helping them,” she said.
A lot of credit is given to HN Ananth Kumar, BJP’s sixterm MP from Bengaluru South for growing the party in the city. His political savvy and his ability to reach people in rival parties not just kept him undefeated, but also helped the party go from strength to strength in every election.
From the time the state was rechristened Karnataka in 1977, Bengaluru South has been anti-Congress, backing the Janata Parivar barring a single term for Gundu Rao in 1989. While Venkatagiri Gowda, an economist, carried the tag of slaying a giant and putting BJP on Bengaluru’s map, party insiders say that he, in fact, was a beneficiary of the party’s growing prominence on the back of the Ram Mandir movement that captured the imagination of the majority Hindu voters in the segment. L Vasudev Murthy, who managed Gowda’s campaign says: “His candidature was spot on. It brought together both Brahmins and Vokkaligas.”
After Gowda, a young Ananth Kumar, who had come through the ranks as a student leader and who was seen as a quintessential Sangh Parivar man, was given the ticket, which he held till his death last November.