Sowmya Reddy Vs Tejasvi Surya, A Battle Between Two Young Candidates In Bengaluru SouthSowmya Reddy will face BJP candidate Tejasvi Surya in Bengaluru South on the Congress ticket in the upcoming poll on April 26, 2024. She is the current general secretary of the All India Mahila Congress (AIMC) and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). Sowmya was elected to the legislative assembly from Jayanagar in 2018. During the COVID-19, she provided meals and rations to the people in her constituency. However, she lost the 2023 election to BJP candidate CK Ramamurthy for only 16 votes which she alleged was a manipulation by the election officials. She also challenged the result in court.
Sowmya Reddy is a social worker, human rights activist, animal welfare protagonist, and environmental protection policy advocate represents a new face of Indian politics. Sowmya is the daughter of the former Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy. The young politician had also been conferred with Aadarah Yuva Vidhayak Samman for outstanding performance in development and democracy-related work. Reddy completed her education in Engineering and later an M.S. degree from the New York Institute of Technology before joining politics.
The Bengaluru South has been a BJP stronghold for nearly 3 decades, since 1977, the Congress won the seat only once in 1989 elections. The constituency has a sizeable Brahmin population which dominated the leadership in the constituency mostly.
The constituency is comprised of Govindraj Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Chickpet, Basavanagudi, Padmanabha Nagar, B.TM. Layout, Jayanagar and Bommanahalli. In the 2023 assembly elections, 5 out of 8 seats were won by the BJP candidates and 3 went to INC candidates. From 1996 to 2014 Ananth Kumar won the parliamentary seat here consecutively. In 2019, Tejasvi Surya won the general elections here with 62.20 percent votes while Congress candidate B. K. Hariprasad got only 34.33 percent votes.
It is a general category seat with a 78.08% literacy rate. The constituency has SC, ST, and Muslim population as 12.5%, 2%, and 12.97% of the total population.