Congress, BJP overkill in Hebbal? New voters worry parties

Bengaluru: Just hours before the counting of votes for three  Assembly constituencies on Tuesday, both the ruling Congress party and opposition BJP were jittery over their prospects.

The Assembly constituencies, Bidar North, Devadurga in Raichur and Hebbal went to polls on Saturday due to the death of three MLAs  -  Gurupadappa Nagamarpalli, Venkatesh Naik and Jagadish Kumar - respectively. Bidar North and Hebbal were represented by BJP while Devadurga was with the Congress.

All eyes are on Hebbal as the Congress made it a high profile contest. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader disclosed that the party was apprehensive about its prospects in Hebbal and Devadurga.

Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah had made his community man Byrathi Suresh nurse the constituency in the last six months. Byrathi even got least 2000 voters in each of the eight wards enrolled in the voters' list.

“No one knows how this segment will behave in this election. It is widely believed in party circles that the Congress would win by less than 500 votes," the source explained.

A leader of the BJP said the party had taken every possible step to retain the seat. "For instance, we  launched a widespread campaign to portray this as  an election between a minority and majority community candidate. Besides, BJP candidate, Y.A. Narayanaswamy, a two-time MLC from the teachers constituency, carried out a systematic campaign using no less than 3,000 teachers belonging to various  communities in the last 10 days of the  election campaign, who approached most of the parents of students in the schools in the constituency seeking  votes. It remains to be seen how these parents react," the source explained.