Battlelines drawn - duels one-sided, mult-cornered

bangalore: all eyes are set on some of the key wards of bangalore, which will witness multi-cornered contests in the bcc polls on sunday. while the fight is between sitting corporators and their `opponents' in some areas, the contest in some wards is between the sitting corporators who have shifted wards due to change in the reservation. in ulsoor, the contest is between three sitting corporators - v.shivashankar (dmk candidate), sitting corporator from ulsoor, m. paree, an independent and sitting corporator from bharatinagar, and christopher chakravarthy, aiadmk corporator from ramachandrapura. shivashankar has been representing ulsoor for 20 years now; paree hopes to gain votes banking on the development work carried out in bharatinagar. one also has to account for division of votes between two other candidates - pradeep kumar reddy of jd (u) and m. saravana of congress. binnypet: a congress bastion. most corporators elected last time from the 15 wards in the constituency belong to mla v. somanna's faction. congress hopes to bag at least 11. gayatrinagar: a bjp stronghold, it is in the eye of a storm with sitting corporator sumangala chandrashekar being expelled from the bjp's primary membership for anti-party activity. the area has been represented by bjp for the last 15 years - 10 years by s. suresh kumar as corporator (present mla of rajajinagar) and single term by sumanagala chandrashekar. the bjp has pitted c.r. swamy against nagaraj of congress, ramanna of jd(s) and eight other candidates. mavalli: the competition is between sitting bjp corporator vedavyas bhat and congress candidate udayakumar. congress candidate, who lost to bhat last time, poses serious challenge. vv puram: sitting congress corporator p.r. ramesh, a second term corporator, is pitted against krishna reddy of bjp. reddy, a relative of subba reddy, mla, is trying to cast a double-effect. jalahalli: a straight fight between two cousins - b.r. nanjundappa of jd(s)and manjula nanjamari of bjp. the latter, a sitting corporator of adjacent hmt ward, shifted the ward due to change in reservation. b.l. prabhakar is the dark horse who could bag a few divided votes. nagpura: shivakumar hosamani, famous in the area for his social service, is contesting as an independent. he will give a tough fight to sitting corporator narendra babu. yediyur: it's a prestige issue for former mayor and sitting corporator padmavati gangadhar gowda. her husband gangadhar gowda is contesting on a jd(s) ticket; s. murali of bjp and venkatesh reddy of congress are the other contenders. madivala: the fight is between three vs - g. venkatesh and h. venkatesh, independents and y. venkatesh, a bjp candidate. jd(s) candidate y.n. ashok kumar is expected to mop up the divided votes.