BJP wins Bangalore civic polls

BANGALORE: By Monday noon, as crackers exploded in the air and sweet boxes did the rounds, the BJP was celebrating a new chapter in its history. Of ending five decades of Congress dominance in the city corporation and, in fact, as the icing on the cake, getting to rule the newly formed Greater Bangalore.
As the scoreboard kept ticking, BJP leaders, who gloated over their victories in the assembly and Lok Sabha elections not so long ago, rejoiced.Two citadels had crumbled — one of the Congress and the other of the JD(S), both of whom had threatened to join hands, albeit not openly.
The result certainly showed that urban Bangalore was well within the pocket of chief minister B S Yeddyurappa's party, but a more telling picture was of the gains it made in the newly minted semi-urban areas. The party swept all the eight wards in Bommanahalli, C V Raman Nagar, Malleswaram, Yelahanka and K R Puram (represented by M Satish Reddy, S Raghu, C Ashwathnarayan, S R Vishwanath and N S Nandiesh Reddy respectively of the BJP) and Govindaraja Nagar (Priya Krishna, Congress). On the flip side, there were some aberrations in Mahadevapura represented by minister Aravind Limbavali and in Pulakeshinagar (B Prasanna Kumar, Congress).
The Congress, whose electoral misfortunes seemed unending, performed badly, with party leaders on hindsight admitting they let an opportunity slip simply because of their own complacency. The party rested its oars on the goodwill of the past and could not match the BJP's aggressive campaign.
The JD(S) opened its electioneering campaign with a note of disdain and disbelief in Bangaloreans' political sensitivity. Party state chief H D Kumaraswamy was critical of the citizens' penchant for complaining about infrastructure shortcomings but not displaying the same vigour in exercising their right to vote.
The low voter turnout of 44% seemed to have vindicated the Congress-JD(S) grievance of voter apathy. Both parties were banking upon the BJP's attempts to defer the elections as the major plank for the voters to turn in their favour.
Overall, there has been no miraculous makeover of Bangalore in the past 22 months by the BJP government, but the sheer campaign of making the city better with a plethora of assurances seemed to have made the difference favouring their victory.