Sowmya escapes tight rope walk with few complaints from voters

Umar Sharieef | NT

Bengaluru: The voters in the Jayanagar constituency are happy with the overall performance of their MLA Sowmya Reddy, who is in the fray for the upcoming assembly election, albeit they complained about the civic and traffic issues there. Home to many business, commercial, and residential establishments, the constituency is also known for its green cover.

However, the posh area is also reeling under the elected representative’s apathy for some time. Tanveer Ahmed, an IT professional, told News Trail that there are improper street lights in some of the wards, which the officials rectified a few days before the election.

“Many wards under this constituency have been reeling under the absence of improper street lights, forcing people to use their mobile phone torches to walk. It increases chances of the people falling prey to miscreants. Now, some of the street lights are working and it arrives ahead of the assembly election”, he said. Byrasandra, J.P. Nagar, and some of the street blocks are the most affected places with improper street lights to no street lights.

“Not all the roads are riddled with potholes. It is one of the most costly areas in the city and the roads here are much better than compared to other constituencies. I drive to Lalbagh daily for my work and not all the roads are bad”, Anjana, a resident of Jayanagar said. Like many other constituencies, Jayanagar is also under the radar of heavy traffic congestion.

While a few of the residents alleged illegal parking of vehicles in front of their houses, their allegation was evident and true when News Trail was on the grass root. To a surprise, Sowmya Reddy’s campaign vehicle was allegedly parked in front of a house, encroaching on the owner’s place by leaving the parking space in her MLA office in the fourth block. On a condition of anonymity, the residents in the stretch complained of haphazard parking of politician vehicles in front of their houses.

“Since the MLA office is in our stretch, a lot of the supporters of Congress party allegedly use our house space to park their vehicles, making it hard for us to get out”, multiple residents to whom News Trail spoke to, said. There are 2.06 lakh voters in the constituency, of which 1, 05,582 are Male and 1, 04,345 are Female including 15 voters in the other category. Sowmya Reddy is the daughter of Ramalinga Reddy, who is the MLA of BTM Layout and the former minister.

However, in the fray for the BJP is C K Ramamurthy, whom the party believes will sweep the election against the Congress candidate. JD(S) has fielded Kale Gowda. In 2018, Sowmya Reddy won the election by defeating BJP’s BN Prahlad by a margin of 2,889 votes. The number of votes polled for her stands at 53,000, while BJP’s candidate got 51,568.