K’taka Bypolls: BJP’s vote share steadily declined across Shira since 2008

The two legislative assembly constituencies going to polls on November 3 are RR Nagar in Bengaluru and Shira in Tumkur district.

In Shira, JDS ticket was given to Ammajamma, the wife of recently deceased MLA Satyanarayana. Rajesh Gowda is contesting from BJP while former minister TB Jayachandra will contest from Congress.

BJP does not have much hold in Shira. It seems that the BJP leaders are calculating that their adjustment at Shira with JD(S) may get them the RR Nagar seat easily.

Since 1951, there have been a total of 16 assembly elections in Shira constituency. Of these, Congress candidates were elected 10 times, JDS and non-Congress candidates won three times each.

The vote count of BJP in the last three assembly elections has been declining. In the 2008 elections, Jayachandra of the Congress party got 45.02% of votes while JDS’s Satyanarayana got 25.4%. B Manjunath, who contested from the BJP got 17.79% of votes

In the 2013 election, Jayachandra won again with 46.47% of the votes. JDS’s Satyanarayana received 37.26% while BK Manjunath received 11.84%. In the 2018 elections, Satyanarayana won  with 41.24% of the votes and TB Jayachandra got 35.49%. However, the candidate from the BJP. R Gowda received only 9.41% of the votes.