Buoyed by Modi factor, Tejasvi Surya sits pretty in Bangalore South as Congress rides on guarantee delivery

Animated debates, campaigns in parks and along temple paths, and discussions over “by-two coffees” are common sights across the Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency, where the Congress is facing an uphill battle against the BJP in its stronghold.

While the BJP is banking on the “Modi factor” and the Centre’s infrastructure push in the city besides the 33-year-old incumbent MP Tejasvi Surya’s “five-year report card”, and, the Congress seems to be relying heavily on the momentum from its last year’s resounding Assembly polls victory and the Siddaramaiah government’s subsequent implementation of its five guarantees.

With an electorate of over 22 lakh, the constituency has been electing a BJP MP for the last eight consecutive times since 1996. BJP stalwart and ex-Union minister Ananth Kumar represented it six times between 1996 and 2014. Making his debut in the 2019 polls, Surya had defeated senior Congress leader B K Hariprasad by over 3.30 lakh votes.

This time, the seat will witness a fight between the BJP’s firebrand leader Tejasvi Surya, the national president of its youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, and the Congress’s Sowmya Reddy, who lost the 2023 Assembly polls from Jayanagar by just 16 votes.

The Congress claims the guarantees, which have benefited lakhs of people, especially women, and aided in the sustenance of middle and lower-middle class families, would help it bring an end to the BJP’s long winning streak. The BJP however appears to have an edge in five of the eight Assembly segments falling under the Lok Sabha seat.

Sowmya, who is the daughter of former minister Ramalinga Reddy and is looking to make a comeback after her narrow Assembly poll defeat, told The Indian Express that there was no better time