Looking around the whitefield-krishnarajapuram area, one gets the feeling that the BJP is strong in these parts. The area is dotted with advertisements by the party, and the local party office is also quite prominent. No other party has any sort of visible presence here, and considering that this area is semi-urban and has a large number of Reddys (that I figure out by the names of the leaders, etc.) I would classify this area as a BJP stronghold.
The BJP probably knows this, and hence has no reservations about fielding an outsider (state general secretary Arvind Limbavalli, who hails from Bagalkot) from the Mahadevapura (SC) constituency, which falls under this area. Madan Patel apparently wanted to contest from here, but he has been shifted to the nearby Pulikeshinagar (SC) constituency so that the general secretary has a “safe” seat. Interestingly, Limbavalli’s homepage on the state legislative council website describes him as a “civil engineering consultant”. Speak of fielding people connected with real estate from the outskirts.
In two other semi-urban constituencies from the erstwhile Bangalore north (KR Puram and Peenya Dasarahalli), the BJP is fielding real estate guys. It is a chap called Krishna Reddy from KR Puram. Looking at the presence of the BJP in this area, I think he should win easily. Nothing, however, can be said about Peenya Dasarahalli, where BJP is yet to announce the final candidate, though both people in the shortlist are from the real estate industry.
Sarvagnanagar (Cox Town) and Pulikeshinagar (Fraser Town) are both Tamil-dominated localities, so I wouldnt’ expect the BJP to do too well in these areas. They are both new constituencies so it remains to be seen who the Congress fields from here. I won’t be surprised if former Bharatinagar MLA J Alexander is fielded from Sarvagnanagar.
Then there is the “adjustment” that has had to be done due to the dissoluiton of the Jayamahal and Bharatinagar constituencies. Katta Subramanya Naidu, who has represented Shivajinagar thrice, is now moving to the adjacent Hebbal constituency. This should be easier for him since it has a much lesser proportion of minorities compared to Shivajinagar. Stepping in in the space vacated by him is Nirmal Kumar Surana, who used to earlier represent the Bharatinagar constituency. Though Shivajinagar has been voting the BJP in the last few elections, it remains to be seen if they continue to support Surana.
S Raghu started off his political career by representing CV Raman Nagar in the BMP. During the 2004 elections, he contested from the Shantinagar (SC) constituency and won. Now, Shantinagar has been de-reserved while a new reserved constituency has been created at C V Raman Nagar, where he is going to contest from this time round. He is reported to be strong in this part of Bangalore, and also given that he hails from this area, I would expect him to win the seat.
One interesting thing about the delimitation exercise this time round is that the division of Bangalore into Lok Sabha constituencies has been made purely on a geographical basis. It seems like Justice Kuldip Singh has taken a map of Bangalore and divided it into three using East-West lines and thus divided the city into North, Central and South. The last time round, the division of Bangalore into North and South was more on a cultural basis.
If you recall, despite being located towards the north of the city, Malleswaram had been classified under Bangalore South. Shantinagar, which is not really to the north of the city, had been classified under “north”. That particular classification was more like dividing the city along linguistic lines, with the traditioanlly Kannada speaking and middle class areas going to Bangalore South while the predominantly migrant areas had gone to the North.
For more on the cultural division of Bangalore, read this post. And read the comments. Quite entertaining they are.