more-in The race for the Rajajinagar Assembly constituency seems to be getting tough, as two bigwigs slug it out. Although the incumbent BJP MLA S. Suresh Kumar has won from the constituency four times, this time around he faces a neck-and-neck fight against the Indian National Congress’s candidate G. Padmavathi, who is a former Mayor. The two rivals faced off in 2008 in the same Assembly constituency. Ms. Padmavati had lost by a margin of 14,660 votes. In 2013, Assembly elections, Mr Kumar defeated Shobha Karandlaje who was representing KJP as well as R. Manjula Naidu by a margin of 14,809 votes. But Ms. Padmavathi says that things have changed over the last decade. “I am now a four-time corporator and people in the constituency want change as there has been no development over the last four terms,” she says. She also adds that her popularity as Mayor of the city won her goodwill as she worked for 365 days without a single holiday. However, many of the residents feel that Mr. Kumar is their “tried and tested” candidate as he has been active in addressing many of their concerns. “He is a familiar face and is always available when we need him. But there is a need for out-of-the-box ideas to help the youth in our constituencies. Having sports complexes, developing playgrounds is the need of the hour,” says Arvind R., a resident of Basaveshwarnagar. Another major problem in certain pockets of the constituency is scarcity of water — an issue that residents are hoping to find a solution to from their new elected representative. The two competitors are leaving no stone unturned and are attending to civic grievances and sweating it out in the field, hoping that these convert into votes. Besides conducting door to door campaigns they have also conducted several cultural events to earn the goodwill of people. Out of the seven wards in the constituency, both the candidates are strong in certain pockets.

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