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By Abhishek Shanker
India’s high tech hub of Bengaluru votes Friday amid searing heat and a prolonged water shortage, with the ruling and opposition parties trading barbs about the lack of basic resources.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi — whose Bharatiya Janata Party holds three of the city’s four parliamentary seats but recently lost control of the state government to the Indian National Congress — criticized the latter for mismanaging Bengaluru’s infrastructure. He alleged that India’s Silicon Valley has been left hostage to “the tanker mafia,” a reference to the water tankers that replenish commercial reservoirs often at high cost.
About 10 million citizens will cast their ballot in Bengaluru, which is home to the country’s $194 billion IT services industry and houses the biggest office of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. outside New York. The city’s population has more than tripled since 1990, to over 13 million, putting enormous pressure on its roads and natural resources like water and green cover.
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Candidates have one big factor to worry about: the possibility of low voter turnout. The city registered an average of less than 60 per cent at the last polls in 2019, compared with the national record of 67 per cent.
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BJP veteran P.C. Mohan is seeking reelection for a fourth straight time from Bengaluru Central, and is up against political greenhorn Mansoor Ali Khan of the Congress party.
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In Bengaluru South, another BJP bastion, Tejasvi Surya is being challenged by Congress’s Sowmya Reddy.
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M.V. Rajeev Gowda, a former management professor, will take on BJP’s Shobha Karandlaje in the northern constituency.
- Incumbent D.K. Suresh of the Congress in Bengaluru Rural will battle C.N. Manjunath of the BJP, the son-in-law of former premier H.D. Deve Gowda.
Voting will also take place across the state of Kerala, where the BJP won zero seats in 2019 and the Congress took 15 of the total 20 seats. The state, known as God’s Own Country because of its rolling mountains and lush forests, also holds the honor of having India’s highest literacy rate of 94 per cent.
Here are some of the key constituencies to watch out for in Kerala, as well as others across the country voting in the second phase:
Wayanad, Kerala: Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader from the Congress, will contest the election here. He is running for the second time from this constituency after relinquishing a family seat in northern Uttar Pradesh.
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala: Congress’ Shashi Tharoor will be attempting to win the seat for the fourth time against federal minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Karimganj, Assam: Bordering Bangladesh, the constituency has a high Muslim population where the citizen register and the controversy around it will weigh on the vote. Both the Congress and a regional party AIUDF - which has a strong electoral history in the region - have nominated a Muslim candidate.
