bengaluru rajajinagar an old neighbourhood founded in the 1950s is known to be relatively well connected by bus and metro in comparison to other parts of bengaluruthe locality was developed in the aftermath of independence and became the housing hub for employees of public sector industries and the state government it also has a sizeable chunk of people from north karnataka and north indian communities particularly jains gujaratis and marwarisone would think a locality this old and prominent would have good roads and public infrastructure but constituents point to a lack of standard infrastructure and utilities incumbent mla s suresh kumar says that being an old and core area it has all the basics and people are in need of public swimming pools indoor stadiums and sporting facilities but the opposition is united in its understanding of the constituencys issuesa lack of public schools reliable public healthcare good quality roads and drinking water seems to plague this area especially those living in the lowincome pockets of prakash nagar dayananda nagar and jedarahallipolitically the constituency was anticongress at its birth in 1978 it has elected the party only twice when bjp became a force in the state in the mid1990s it switched from an anticongress secular space to saffronsuresh kumar has won five of the seven elections he contested here since 1989 after three consecutive victories he has to factor in antiincumbency he told stoithat before the elections were announced he had visited about 17000 houses to understand issues on the ground h is efforts have been matched only by aap candidatebt naganna who claims to have finished three rounds of such campaigning with 50000 hou ses in the constituency the main challenge to suresh kumar though comes from congress puttanna a fourtime mlc puttanna switched from bjp to congress a few days ago though his nomination triggered some heartburn in congress things have settled downhaving nominated a vokkaliga candidate the congress is banking on the communitys 60000 votes the largest block in the segment there are 40000 lingayat 15000 brahmin and 6000 jain gujarati and marwari voters in the segmentbjp workers on the ground point out that the congress calculations of garnering vokkaliga votes are farfetched as the voters will be divided with the jds fielding dr anjanappa th a former vokkaliga sangha officebearera lawyer from the segment said the sitting mla has left no stone unturned in promoting health and education and is a silent worker who abides by court orders and the law without exercising muscle powerthe congress also has to contend with lingayat dissatisfaction bs sachidananda murthy vicepresident akhila bharata veerashaiva lingayat mahasabha said we had asked congress to field lingayats in five seats in the city particularly rajajinagar the party didnt heed our request some major brahmindominated educational institutions in the segment also appear to have thrown their weight behind the bjp candidatethe softspoken anjanappa a doctor says his focus lies in improving healthcare and education while puttanna says his focus will be on