Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing chief and MP Tejasvi Surya, was leading by 2,65,649 votes (as of 4:16 pm) from Karnataka’s Bangalore South constituency in the Lok Sabha election according to the Election Commission of India on Tuesday

Early results showed the 33-year-old leader’s spirited challenger on the seat was Congress party’s Sowmya Reddy, who lost the Karnataka State Assembly elections last year by 16 votes.

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Surya is eyeing for a second term from Bangalore South, which has been a BJP bastion since 1991. The seat was held by theparty’s senior leader Ananth Kumar for over 22 years from 1991 until his demise in November, 2018.

In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which was Tejasvi Surya’s electoral debut, he received a vote share of 62.2% and defeated Congress party’s BK Hariprasad who managed to get 34.33%.

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A graduate from the Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies, Surya began his political journey with the student wing of BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Since September 2020, he has also been serving as the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).

On March 20 this year, based on the complaint by the Election Commission, a case was registered against Surya at Halasuru Gate police station in Bengaluru for alleged hate posts on social media.

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Meanwhile, the Congress party’s campaign in the constituency was based on four guarantees including ‘Gruha Lakshmi’, ‘Gruha Jyoti’, ‘Yuva Nidhi’ and ‘Anna Bhagyave’.

Created in 1977, the Bangalore South constituency consists of eight assembly segments including Govindraj Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Chickpet, Basavanagudi, Padmanaba Nagar, BTM Layout, Jayanagar, and Bommanahalli.

The constituency went to polls in the second phase on April 26 and recorded a voter turnout of 53.15%.

The Lok Sabha polls for 543 seats were held in seven phases starting from April 19 and the last phase on June 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking a rare third term at the Centre with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.