Bangalore: The grandige angadis (petty shops that sell puja accessories) of Gandhi Bazaar, the suave paved-and-asphalted roads and expressway to electronic city, the tree-lined Basavanagudi, the flyover-lined Vijayanagar, the BTM Layout homes of bureaucrats, it's all these areas that will decide who will win the Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat, which has been a BJP bastion since 1996. The seat is headed for an election that will define its personalities and its people.
The first whiff of why this constituency will become nationally important came when Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani started quietly visiting apartment complexes and colleges, meeting students, addressing seminars. It was a kind of soft-launch for his political ambitions - a kind of testing-the-waters-and-voter-sentiment.
He launched campaigns on 'Ideas for Bengaluru' and 'Pledge to Vote,' held freewheeling Twitter quizzes, while sipping coffee at Brahmin's Coffee Bar after a morning walk at the Madhavan Park in Jayanagar. He also went around meeting Congress booth-level workers, met the MLAs of the four Assembly segments where Congress has MLAs, did the rounds of the party offices in Delhi and Bangalore.
One bright afternoon last month, at a private college where he was in yet another interaction with students on his Aadhaar project, he finally told the students (and the world): yes, he's taking the plunge.
Almost overnight, the suits have given way to khadi. Over the last three weeks, Nandan is suddenly seen eating idlis at darshinis asking for ideas for Bangalore, taking a bus to the local football match, playing badminton one day and cricket the next, participating in cyclothons, and, not to be left behind, seeking the blessings of seers of the majority Vokkaliga community and doing padayatras in Bismillah Nagar. In his own words, one of the richest men this election (valued at 7,700 crores by his affidavit) is shifting from a "five-day-week to five weeks of tough campaigning".
For, Bangalore South is a constituency that's a mix of all these flavours. It has conservative areas that are considered 'old Bangalore,' the trading classes, a mix of all communities - but also has large areas that have recently been populated by an influx of people from others states - techies who have mostly migrated for jobs in the IT companies in the region.
In fact, the constituency has, over the last five-eight years, seen so many immigrants from out of Bangalore that at one point, the BJP had started looking out for 'safer' seats for its southern icon Ananth Kumar.
Ananth Kumar - the man who has won this constituency five times consecutively between 1996 and 2009 - has also been BJP's national general secretary for over 10 years. Sometime last year, the party internal surveys forced the party commanders in the assembly segments coming under Bangalore south to sit up and start worrying. "The man who gives Narendra Modi his B-form (the party ticket)," as Ananth's deputy R Ashok puts it, was not on easy ground.
They realised that their MP wasn't being seen in local dos as much as needed - in fact, some have been complaining that they only see their MP before an election.
After Assembly elections 2013, they also realised another thing - that four of assembly segments in Bangalore south are now ruled by the Congress, four others by the BJP. It looks 50:50 on the face of it, but in the four where the Congress lost, the margins were lesser and vote shares were pretty high.
In fact, Ananth Kumar's victory margin has been going down from 1.8 lakh in 1998 to 65,000-odd in 1999 to just 37,612 against a combative and dynamic Krishna Byregowda of the Congress in 2009.
Two months back, an MLA confessed to me, "We told Ananth at his face - you should look for another constituency, you're losing ground here. But for the NaMo wave, you stand no chance."
Ananth's critics within the party - those in the Yeddyurappa camp - were laughing: "He will lose, we'll have to find him a Rajya Sabha seat from Chhattisgarh."
If voters voted the way they had done in the 2013 Assembly elections, and the vote shares of all MLAs added up could give any trend, then Ananth Kumar would be losing this election by over 50,000 votes.
The big 'IF,' of course, only IF voters voted the same way as Assembly 2013.
But Kumar likes to keep reminding you that it's national issues that will play out this time. That people will vote for him just to vote for NaMo. That "First time in 1996, when I contested I won with a vote percentage of 38 per cent but later the vote percentage has risen to 48 and 53 per cent." He is referring to his share in total votes, as against margins. But share in total votes has risen in other parties too.
As he gets down to putting his math in order, it's also clear that apart from Brand NaMo, he doesn't have much else new to offer to the people... while Nandan's campaign is strewn with fresh ideas and fresh promise - promises of employment concerns getting addressed - that sure-fire promise that has won elections all the way from America to Bangalore.
In the clash of the titans, even the mud-slinging (and mud, it is) is rather philosophical hovering over the edges of decency. Ananth, who two days back said, "People have to decide between the person who has started showing love 18 days ago to someone who has constantly loved you 18 years" later said all he was referring to was that he has a newcomer opponent in every election and he is ready to face him.
But Nandan, who has been donning the neta-topi quite swiftly, was quick with his repartee. "Tt is time for us to question the quality of 18-year-old milk whose expiry date is long gone. Nandan is the fresh water the city needs," he said.
Amidst this is the nondescript Nina Nayak - a lady whom I've met on many occasions as the go-getter child rights activist. She has earlier headed the Karnataka Child Rights Commission and exposed scams of money for anganwadi schemes being misused, of children in anganwadis facing neglect. She feels passionately for the children of the poor, and the way we treat our kids.
But will that connect with voters in a national election? Or will brand AAP and brand Kejriwal - that she represents - make a dent in this IT-dominant area? Not much hope, but who can really tell in Indian politics? Will she end up dividing votes? In which case, whose votes will she eat into, Congress' or the BJP's?
As Ananth looks to hit a sixer after his five terms, Nandan tauntingly reminds you that his score to the people has been a zero so far. The political salvos are getting richer. And the math-crunching is hitting dizzying heights in the southern summer.
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