D V Sadananda Gowda of Bharatiya Janata Party has retained his Bangalore North seat, becoming an MP for the fourth time. Gowda got 8.2 lakh votes or 52.83 percent of the total votes polled. His closest rival, Congress candidate Krishna Byre Gowda – MLA and Minister in Karnataka’s ruling coalition – trailed behind Gowda by over a lakh votes.

Sadananda Gowda had handled three portfolios in the Modi cabinet – Minister of Railways, Minister of Law, and eventually Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Straight match

Bangalore North has been BJP’s stronghold since 2004. Sadananda Gowda had won the 2014 elections from here by a huge margin of 2,29,764 votes. But it seemed this election would be a tough battle between him and Krishna Byre Gowda, both of whom are Vokkaligas.

Bangalore North is considered a cosmopolitan area that retains pockets of traditionalism. Voters here include a large number of migrants. Many of them had settled here due to property development in the area that followed the launch of the international airport.

The constituency went to polls on April 18th, in the second phase of the 2019 general elections. It registered 54.63 percent polling. Bangalore North is the constituency with the highest number of registered voters in all of Karnataka – 28,48,402.

Here are the candidates who won the most votes as per the website of Election Commission of India:

Background

Gowda had started his political career back in the 80s, by joining Jan Sangh. He contested and won the state assembly elections in 1994 and 1999 from Puttur assembly constituency. Between 1999 and 2004, he was also the deputy leader of opposition in the assembly.

In 2004 and 2009, he contested in the Lok Sabha elections from Dakshina Kannada and Chikkamagaluru parliamentary constituencies respectively. He won both elections with healthy margins. In 2011, he took charge as the Chief Minister of Karnataka, following the resignation of B S Yedyurappa.

He contested in the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Bangalore North parliamentary constituency, and won again. In the previous Modi cabinet, Gowda was briefly the Minister of Railways. He was soon moved to the Law Ministry, and later to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Gowda is an LLB graduate. There are no criminal cases pending against him. He has assets worth around Rs 20 crore, and liabilities of around Rs 10 cr.

Credit: myneta.info

Promises and plans

In one of his campaign rallies, Gowda said that he and late MP Ananth Kumar had done their best to bring maximum funds to Karnataka. He assured that he would continue to do so while contributing to the development of his constituency.

“Apart from the works taken up in the constituency, I have given double funds to the state as Railway Minister when compared with Mallikarjun Kharge, and introduced 21 trains. As Law Minister, I have removed 1154 obsolete laws… What is important is standing up for the State’s interests and not boasting about minor works,” Gowda said in a recent interview to The Hindu.

In an interview to the Deccan Herald, Gowda said he had constructed schools in his constituency with the help of corporate giants. He also said that he had visited all eight assembly constituencies in Bangalore North 100-130 times, and knew the pulse of the public.

Gowda has not presented any specific promise or agenda on how he would work for Bangalore North constituency. You can find only mentions of national issues or BJP retweets on his twitter feed. During his election campaign, #mattommemodi was the primary theme on his feed.

See Also: Gowda’s MP Profile, 2014-19