Karnataka elections and the push to bag the migrant votes

The BJP has lined up over 50 young MLAs and MPs from various states in North India to woo the migrant voters in Bengaluru.

There are scores of migrant settlers in Bengaluru, who hail from both North and South India. This population is turning out to be very important in many constituencies and hence the BJP is going all hog to woo this voter.

Leaders from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra are among the many who are being roped in for the Bengaluru campaign specifically to target the migrant voters. Some of the leaders who would be in the city would be Hardik Patel from Gujarat, M D Sharma from MP, Pravin Ghoghari from Surat, Vinod Tawde from Maharashtra and Manish Jaiswal from Jharkhand.

There are many from North India who are residing in Bengaluru. However in the previous elections, they have not voted as they continued to remain enrolled in their home states. This time however the data shows that the North Indians and other migrants have enrolled with the election body here. The number of such voters is the highest in Bengaluru South.

This is not just restricted to the BJP, but parties such as the Congress which is looking to wrest power have also been wooing the migrant voters. The reason why leaders from other states are being flown in to be part of the campaign is to overcome the language barrier. The main language spoken is Hindi and hence these leaders are being brought in.

Similarly there is a major migrant population from Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Leaders from these states too are being brought in to reach out to this population.

The migrant population is being targeted more during these polls unlike the previous ones. The Vokkaligas and Lingayats are the dominant population in Karnataka, but in this election every vote counts and hence the parties are leaving nothing to chance and trying to bag the vote of every single candidate.