2019 Lok Sabha Election Results of Bengaluru South, Karnataka: Debutant BJP politician Tejasvi Surya captures party bastion, trounces Congress MP BK Hariprasad

The South constituency of India's IT hub - Bengaluru South saw a prestige battle between the grand old party and PM Modi through relatively new faces to Bengaluru - Congress' Karnataka Rajya Sabha MP BK Hariprasad and BJP's debutant politician Tejasvi Surya, with the vote swing towards Tejasvi Surya by a margin of 3,29,233 votes defeating the Congress Rajya Sabha MP Hariprasad, as of 10:00 PM

Poll campaign issues:

Being an urban constituency, poor voter turnout is a factor which played on poll day. Both candidates had campaigned heavily on national agendas rather than local issues plaguing the old Bengaluru part and the IT hub region of the constituency. 

Bengaluru South which is a BJP stronghold for last 28 years, has Tejasvi Surya who is largely known as a Sangh leader in the region had been campaigning along the lines of BJP leaders basing his speeches on nationalism, anti-terrorism, development, and anti-dynasty.

Meanwhile, his opponent Hariprasad, originally from Mallapuram, is a major figure in national level politics and had openly declared that his fight was against Modi and not the BJP candidate - even refusing to name his opponent Surya. He has based his campaign emphasizing what disaster Modi has caused to this nation and why they should not vote for him.

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Historical trend:

The IT-Hub has been a BJP forte since 1991 and  Hariprasad himself had contested against Ananth Kumar in 1999 and lost by 70,000 votes. 

BJP first won the seat in 1996 by Ananth Kumar. He was given a tough fight by Congress's Krishna Byre Gowda in 2009 who ultimately lost. In 2014, Kumar retained the seat by defeating Infosys co-founder and the former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) board which introduced the Aadhar Nandan Nilekani, by receiving 56.90% of the votes.

Since Kumar's death in 2018, BJP was heavily dependent on its candidate to retain its bastion and hence had fielded a conservative Sangh candidate who would toe the party line.

Bengaluru South polled in the second phase of elections on April 28.