BJP Clinches all 3 Bengaluru Seats; Tejasvi Surya Becomes Parliamentarian at the Age of 28

Bengaluru Lok Sabha Election 2019: The Bharatiya Janata Party has won all three seats in Bangalore city. The three seats are Bangalore North, Bangalore Central and Bangalore South.

In Bangalore North DV Sadananda Gowda won against Krishna Byre Gowda of the Congress, while Tejasvi Surya, the youngest BJP contestant in the country, registered a thumping victory in Bangalore South, defeating Congress' BK Hariprasad.

Bangalore South seat is a BJP bastion with largely upper class Hindu voters. The seat was empty since former MP Ananth Kumar died in 2018. Ahead of candidature announcement, there were strong rumours that BJP would give a ticket to Tejaswini Ananth Kumar from the seat, but Surya got the nod eventually.

Earlier, the youth leader had thanked the people of his constituency on Twitter and said he would be holding a public meet to interact with voters and party workers.

In Bangalore Central, Congress' Rizwan Arshad lost to BJP candidate PC Mohan by a wide margin. Bengaluru city holds three out of total 28 seats in Karnataka and featured several high profile candidates and pitched battles this time around. A veteran of the South Indian film industry and widely known for his villainous turns in popular Hindi films like Singham, Wanted and Dabbangg 2, Prakash Raj was also contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Bangalore Central seat as an independent. Locked in a three-way contest with BJP's sitting MP PC Mohan and Congress' Rizwan Arshad, the actor could only manage to gain 15000 votes, forfeiting his deposit. In a tweet, Prakash said:

In Karnataka, the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), which is also the government in the state, was up against BJP. Many say the fate of the coalition between Congress and JDS depends on the Lok Sabha polls. Now that BJP has done remarkably well in the state, the coalition government rests on shaky ground.

A favourable result for BJP in the state could also lead to fall of the state government in Karnataka. Rifts between Congress and JDS workers on the ground remain.

Earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had also cancelled his scheduled visit to Delhi on Tuesday, where he was expected to take part in a meeting of Opposition leaders over the issue of Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

Bangalore had recorded a very low voter turnout, with three seats seeing less than 50 per cent polling percentage. Bangalore North witnessed a turnout of 48.19 per cent, Bangalore Central 45.34 per cent and Bangalore South 49.36 per cent. The numbers represent a sharp fall from the 2014 turnout. There have been concerns of several names missing from the voter list.