more-in Jayanagar Assembly constituency will see incumbent BJP MLA B.N. Vijayakumar, taking on a new entrant, Congress candidate Sowmya Reddy, daughter of Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy. In the 2013 election, Mr. Vijayakumar won by 12,312 votes defeating Congress candidate M.C. Venugopal. He has since maintained a stronghold on the constituency, but will he be able to land a hat trick? The Congress had won the seat four times in the past with Mr. Ramalinga Reddy representing the constituency. Mr. Vijayakumar’s visibility and accessibility are his strengths, say residents. “For the last two terms, there has simply been no presence of any candidate here other than Mr. Vijayakumar. It is difficult to compare the candidates from other parties with the MLA here. Except for the metro work which has disrupted life a bit, the locality is very clean, with garbage disposed of, and footpaths and roads well maintained. Moreover, he is seen in the constituency, accessible to people and gets issues addressed,” said Suresh Pathi, a long-time Jayanagar resident. The other candidates in the fray are not deterred by the strong support base Mr. Vijayakumar has amassed. Sowmya Reddy believes that Mr. Vijayakumar’s base is not evenly distributed, and that there exists a huge divide between the developed parts of Jayanagar and localities with the economically weaker sections of society. “A lot of people in the constituency have been ignored. There is problem of drinking water, khatas have not been given, footpaths are bad and solid waste management is a huge issue,” she said. Independent candidate Ravi Krishna Reddy expressed a similar opinion. “There are people in the constituency telling us that they have not seen him. He has focused only on certain wards and neglected others such as Gurappanapalya, Jayanagar East and Byrasandra. In 2013 Assembly elections, he got less than 10 votes in ten booths. In one booth, he got only one vote,” said Ravi Krishna Reddy, who felt that the Congress was a divided house in Jayanagar.

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