Will Bangalore South vote for change?

Incumbent Anantkumar eyeing fifth straight win.

To vote for a change or not would be the key factor in Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency as BJP sitting MP H N Ananthkumar, eyeing a fifth straight win, and his main rival Karnataka Youth Congress chief Krishna Byre Gowda slug it out in the multi-cornered contest.

BJP heavyweight Ananthkumar, who has won the seat in succession from 1996, also faces low-cost aviation pioneer and Air Deccan founder K Gopinath, who is on a solo sortie contesting as an independent and educationist K E Radhakrishnan of JD(S).

Ananthkumar, a Brahmin, who prior to delimitation had the ballots tilted in his favour owing to a higher number of electorate from his community, now has his position challenged with Congress springing a last-minute surprise by pitting three-time MLA Gowda (37), seen as a fresh Vokkaliga face in the constituency which has over 400,000 Vokkaliga voters. Besides the caste factor, Gowda has his youth going in his favour apart from qualifications and the US-returned tag that could appeal to the dominant urban educated class.

 

JD(S) nominee Radhakrishnan, also a Brahmin, is an educationist with over four decades in the field. True to its cosmopolitan nature, the constituency has a Brahmin population of over 350,000, second to 450,000 Vokkaligas followed by 200,000 Kuruba voters, 200,000 Reddys, 100,000 Muslims and 200,000 Christians. Both Ananthkumar and Gowda admit that the main battle will be between them in the April 23 polls.

“The fight is between Congress and BJP. I will focus on our vote base and the youth. People are yearning for change. Intolerance bred by BJP has disappointed them,” Gowda claims. He also said the constituency would no longer be a BJP bastion since its “profile had changed after delimitation.”

But, Ananth Kumar dismisses the talk of anti-incumbency and non-develop-ment saying, “The constit-uency is a BJP bastion and there is no threat. I brought the international airport, Metro, Yeshwanthpur terminal and South-Western Railway zone. People want a change at the Centre not in Bangalore South.”

In a bid to woo voters, he has been engaging in novel methods — from playing a friendly cricket match with youth to holding street plays ‘Range Yatre’. Giving a ‘starry’ touch to his campaign, he has also roped in members of the cine world.

Gowda, who quit a lucrative job in the United States as a project associate and returned to India in 2003, has also settled for a close personal interaction with the locals by eating in common eateries and door-to-door campaigning. Gopinath, on the other hand, has decided to travel like the common man, much like his former company mascot, in public transport system and jog along with morning joggers in parks. “I want to make a difference...

The buzzword is change. Educated youngsters must vote and vote for a secular person rather than a party,” he said. Stating that Bangalore had lost over 6,00,000 jobs in the past one year, he said, “I will use my corporate network to bring more companies and jobs.” Gopinath, who entered the fray after a 15-year poli-tical hiatus since losing to the Congress in 1994 as a

BJP candidate, has rallied around him the business world with Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw to make a powerful endorsement and used websites, e-mail and blogs to reach out to his voters. “Social harmony, good governance and economic development and security are my focus areas,” he said.

Radhakrishan has chosen to lure youths in educational institutes and has a large band of volunteers.