Bengaluru shows poll apathy yet again

BENGALURU: It was a low turnout of voters at the bypolls for two Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) wards - Kaveripura from Govindarajnagar assembly constituency and Sagayapura from Pulikeshinagar assembly constituency. While Sagayapura ward witnessed 44.82 per cent turnout, Kaveripura had just 39.54 per cent. This only shows the abysmally less interest the city folks have when it comes to voting. In the recent Lok Sabha elections too, Bengaluru saw very low voter turnout. 

“I did vote in the Lok Sabha elections but I did not feel like voting this bypoll. I did not want to take a day off from my business for it,” said Srikantaswamy, who works at Kamakshi industrial area. Even netas were too interested in voting this bypoll. “It is already been four years and now only one year is left. Since there is a Congress-JDS coalition in the BBMP Council, winning one or two seats makes no difference to us, other than increasing our strength. The public has seen how they have functioned in the last four years and this anti-incumbency will work for us in 2020,” a senior BJP member said.

From Sagayapura ward, BJP’s Jayerim is contesting against Congress’ Palaniyamma, who is Elumalai’s sister. Former hooch queen Marimuthu is contesting as an independent. The ward is reserved for general category candidates. JDS, which is in coalition with the Congress, has not fielded any candidate.

In Kaveripura ward, Susheela from JDS is contesting against BJP’s Pallavi. Ramila’s sister and sister-in-law had been vying to contest from Kaveripura on a JDS ticket, but none of them got it.The seats fell vacant after the demise of Deputy Mayor Ramila Umashankar and V Elumalai, who were councillors of Kaveripura and Sagayapuram wards, respectively. The counting is on Friday.

Clash between BJP-JDS members
While polling was peaceful at many places, Kaveripura ward witnessed a clash between JDS and BJP workers. JDS members alleged that BJP workers were distributing money to the voters. Irked by this, there was a verbal duel between the parties. Polling was delayed for a while because of the chaos. Police, however, got the situation under control.