The BJP on Thursday staged a demonstration near Karnataka Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara s residence alleging the Congress government was supporting terrorists and siding with the accused girls in the Udupi washroom video case.
Voters in the state capital remained largely unchanged about their party and candidate preferences as the results saw both the BJP and the Congress retaining most of the seats they had won five years ago. The BJP, which held 15 of the 28 seats in Bengaluru (excluding Jayanagar), won the same number of seats this time.
In a national context, where the BJP has tried to make Muslims politically irrelevant, the contest in Bengaluru's DJ Halli shows that they can still hold their representatives accountable and punish them for failing to stand with the community.
Bengaluru accounts for one-eighth of the seats in the Karnataka assembly. Usually such heft translates into political attention to a region’s needs. But the apathy of Bengaluru’s voters has fuelled complacency among netas. High voter turnout could force netas to fix the city’s problems
The Pulakeshinagar constituency had witnessed riots in August 2020, after former MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy’s relative posted a derogatory comment against Prophet Mohammed on Facebook.