Tejasvi Surya, the youthful leader and Member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party, is currently leading by 2,65,649 votes (as of 4:16 pm) in the Lok Sabha election from Karnataka’s Bangalore South constituency, as per the Election Commission of India’s latest update on Tuesday.
His main opponent in this electoral race is Sowmya Reddy from the Congress party, who faced defeat in the Karnataka State Assembly elections last year by a margin of just 16 votes.
Seeking a second term from Bangalore South, Surya is continuing the BJP’s stronghold on the constituency since 1991, previously held by senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar for over two decades until his passing in November 2018.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, marking Surya’s debut, he secured an impressive 62.2% of the vote share, defeating Congress candidate BK Hariprasad who managed to garner 34.33%.
Surya, a graduate from the Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies, initiated his political journey with the BJP’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Since September 2020, he has assumed the role of the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).
Earlier this year, on March 20, a case was filed against Surya at the Halasuru Gate police station in Bengaluru over alleged hate posts on social media, based on a complaint by the Election Commission.
On the opposing front, the Congress party’s campaign in the constituency focused on four assurances: ‘Gruha Lakshmi’, ‘Gruha Jyoti’, ‘Yuva Nidhi’, and ‘Anna Bhagyave’.
The Bangalore South constituency, established in 1977, comprises eight assembly segments, including Govindraj Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Chickpet, Basavanagudi, Padmanaba Nagar, BTM Layout, Jayanagar, and Bommanahalli.
This constituency witnessed a voter turnout of 53.15% during the polls held on April 26, falling under the broader spectrum of the Lok Sabha elections conducted across 543 seats in seven phases, starting from April 19 and concluding on June 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party aims for an unprecedented third term at the Centre, with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.