Cong,JD(S) hope to dent BJP bastions

Eleven constituencies in Karnataka will go to polls on Thursday in the final phase of polling to the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state....

Eleven constituencies in Karnataka will go to polls on Thursday in the final phase of polling to the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Around 1.5 crore people,including 76 lakh women,will cast their votes across 18,426 booths.

Six of the seats are in central Karnataka that has been dominated by the BJP in recent years. One seat in the coastal region Dakshina Kannada or the erstwhile Mangalore seat is also a BJP stronghold. Four seats in the Old Mysore region home to the Vokkaliga community offer the best prospects for direct fights between the Congress and the JD(S),with the BJP having made significant inroads only in the Mysore seat.

In 2004,the BJP won eight of the 11 seats going to polls,the JD(S) two and the Congress one. In the 2008 Assembly polls,when the constituencies were redrawn,the story was similar with the BJP getting the most votes in the Assembly segments of seven parliamentary constituencies,the Congress gaining one and the JD(S) holding on to its two.

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As per trends,the assumption is that the Congress could gain an additional seat in coastal Karnataka this time,and the JD(S) could also gain one seat,leaving the second phase score at 5:3:3.

At stake in this phase is the future of former PM and Vokkaliga strongman H D Deve Gowda. He is contesting from the Vokkaliga heartland of Hassan.

A keenly fought battle is also likely in Mysore where the JD(S) has invested a great deal of its energy to see its candidate Jivijaya wrest the seat back from BJPs C H Vijayashankar. In Mandya,film star and UPA minister M H Ambareesh of the Congress is in a close battle with N Cheluvarayaswamy of the JD(S).

Among the other keenly watched constituencies is Dakshin Kannada on account of recent incidents of moral policing and attacks on women and minorities.

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