As the date for filing nominations for contesting the elections nears, there is hectic lobbying going on in all political parties to secure the ticket. The competition in the 26 constituencies in Bengaluru city will be extremely intense. Thus far, all the 12 sitting MLA’s of the BJP have been re-nominated. These twelve account for thirty percent of the party MLA’s. Ten of these twelve have represented their constituencies now for two terms and would be seeking a third round of approval from the electorate.
The other two (MLA from Rajarajes hwari nagar and Hebbal) represent seats which the party has won since 2008 when the new delimitation happened though one of them has had just one term and the other was elected in a by-poll. Their likely re-nomination indicates that the party, is reasonably confident of their 'winnability' and thus would not like to experiment with any change.
Further, most of these 12 are prominent leaders in the party representing critical social segments and some would even argue, relatively influential lobbies. Many of them having served as Ministers in the earlier BJP government. In 2008, the BJP conceded 4 seats in the city to the Congress, thus more or less equally dividing the seats with its principal rival.
This time around the 26 seats in the city are critical to both the Congress and the BJP and the strategy of the BJP appears to be that any experiment with new candidates in the city should be in the seats that held by the party at the moment and being represented by political stalwarts from the Congress party.
The Congress too, is likely to re-nominate its sitting MLA’s in the city and also accommodate the new entrants from the JDS. This just goes to indicate the importance of elected representatives winning in the capital city.
