Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], April 26 : Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Bangalore South constituency Tejasvi Surya offered prayers at his residence on Friday ahead of casting his vote for the phase 2 of the Lok Sabha polls which began earlier today.
Congress has fielded Sowmya Reddy against Surya in the Bangalore South constituency.
In a post on X, Tejasvi Surya appealed to the voters to cast their vote on the BJP symbol.
"Wishing all candidates of BJP Karnataka the very best! The people of Karnataka are nationalists. They've witnessed the State's growth under PM Narendra Modi in the last 10 years. Urge all of you to click on the lotus button and elect Modi Ji once again!" Surya said.
Karnataka is voting on 14 seats today in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections.
Bangalore South has been a bastion for the BJP, the party has not been defeated from here since 1991.
The late Ananth Kumar was elected to the Lok Sabha 6 times from this seat.
In 2019, BJP's current Member of Parliament, Tejasvi Surya, secured victory with a significant margin of 27.87 per cent against Congress' BK Hariprasad and became the youngest BJP MP in Lok Sabha.
In 2014, the seat was won by BJP's Ananth Kumar, defeating INC's Nandan Nilekani by a substantial margin.
Earlier today, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy on Friday cast his vote at the BES polling station in Bengaluru.
His wife, Rajya Sabha MP Sudha Murty, also cast her vote in Bengaluru today. Sudha Murty urged people, specifically youngsters, to exercise their right to vote and choose their leaders.
The second phase has 88 Lok Sabha constituencies, including all 20 seats in Kerala, 14 in Karnataka, 13 in Rajasthan, eight in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, six in Madhya Pradesh, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one each in Tripura, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.
Initially, 89 constituencies were scheduled to go to polls today. However, the EC later announced that the voting in Madhya Pradesh's Betul would not take place during the second phase due to the death of a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate.
As many as 1202 candidates, including 1098 males and 102 females, are in the fray.There are 8.08 crore male and 7.8 crore female voters among the electorate who will decide the fate of candidates. As many as 5,929 third-gender electors will also exercise their franchise in the second phase of the polls.
The first phase of voting for the seven-phased Lok Sabha election, the world's largest electoral exercise, was held on April 19 in 102 constituencies across 21 states and UTs. According to the Election Commission, the voter turnout registered was over 62 per cent. The third phase election will be held on May 7.