BJP logs into India's IT hub in a big way

Bangalore, May 25 (IANS) An upbeat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is set to form its first government in south India, Sunday bagged the majority of seats in the state capital and India's IT hub, beating an IT-savvy Congress and decimating Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in the Karnataka assembly election.
According to the state election commission results declared for the 28 constituencies in Bangalore urban district, including 21 seats in the city civic limits, BJP has bagged 16 seats, while Congress won 11 and JD-S one.
As a result of the delimitation exercise, the number of constituencies in and around the district has increased to 28 from 16 earlier. Four seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates.
Prominent among those winning on the BJP ticket were former state ministers Katta Subramanya Naidu from Hebbal and R. Ashok from Padmanabha Nagar, state legislative council member Shobha Karandlaje from Yeshvanathapura, Ashok Limbavli from Mahadevapura, and Suresh Kumar from Rajajinagar.
Though Karandlaje hails from Dakshina Kannada district on the coast and Limbavali from Bijapur in north Karnataka, they contested for the first time from city constituencies to demonstrate the reach of the saffron party into what was once a Congress citadel.
Congress candidates who won from Bangalore include former state ministers Ramalinga Reddy from BTM Layout and Roshan Baig from the thickly-populated Shivajinagar, M. Krishnappa from Vijaynagar and the party's state unit president Krishna Byre Gowda from Byatarayanpura, Dinesh Gunde Rao from Gandhinagar and V. Somanna from Govindraj Nagar.
Former minister in the Kumaraswamy-led coalition government Zameer Ahmed Khan was the lone winner on the JD-S ticket from Chikpet. He defeated Congress candidate R.V. Devaraj, who was the choice of IT-savvy former state chief minister and ex-Maharashtra governor S.M. Krishna.
Though Ahmed had to shift to Chikpet from the adjacent Chamarajpet segment post-delimitation, he retained the seat by defeating Devaraj for the second time. Krishna had won from Chamarajpet in the 2004 polls, but resigned after he was made governor of Maharashtra.
In the 2004 state assembly poll, when the area had 16 seats, Congress had bagged 10, BJP five and JD-S one.
Election for the 28 seats was held May 10 in the first phase of polling to 89 constituencies in the old Mysore region.