Bengaluru: It’s ‘Advantage BJP’ as the state goes to polls to elect 14 new Members of Parliament in the second and final phase of voting on Tuesday.
The party has turned ten of these 14 seats into its stronghold since a decade with its leaders pulling out all the stops to increase the tally to 12 during voting tomorrow with complete support from their traditional allies-members of the numerically strong Lingayat community.
Its candidates in the fray in these 14 seats including two Union ministers Ramesh Jigajinagi and Ananth Kumar Hegde, senior leaders Pralhad Joshi, G M Siddeshwar and state unit president B S Yeddyurappa's son B Y Raghavendra.
In general elections held in 2014, the party won five out of six seats each in Mumbai Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka regions. This time, too, the leaders are banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma coupled with bickering among alliance partners, Congress and JD (S), to wrest Chikkodi constituency and thus boost its overall performance in this part of the state.
These leaders are doing their best to end the long innings of veteran Congress leader M Mallikarjun Kharge in Kalaburagi constituency with Mr Modi and party president Amit Shah leading the charge against the leader of Congress in Lok Sabha. They roped in disgruntled Congress legislator Dr Umesh Jadhav who jumped ship to take on Mr Kharge. They are also keen to trounce KPCC working president Eshwar Khandre in Bidar where a rookie, Bhagwanth Khuba had pulled off a surprise victory over the late former chief minister N Dharam Singh.
The alliance partners, however, are trying to make the most of the anti-incumbency factor against BJP MPs and waiver of farm loans by the state government in order to increase their score as only four of the 14 seats going to polls on Tuesday are represented by Congress MPs. In 2014, out of the total 28 seats, the BJP won in 17, Congress 9 and, JD(S) in two seats.
