Five of 14 candidates backed by B.PAC win

Political punters do it. Now the newly formed Bangalore pressure group, Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC), too can probably claim it can sniff out winners — or at least good runners-up.

Five of the 14 candidates the B.PAC rooted for have triumphed in the political sweepstakes for Bangalore.

The rest, including independents and first-time contestants, figure in the top three to five places in their respective constituencies: these places saw 10 to 12-cornered fights. It will be interesting to see how the group will engage its protagonists.

The task seems cut out for the five winners — Krishna Byre Gowda (Congress—Byatarayanapura); Dinesh Gundu Rao (Congress — Gandhi Nagar); S. Suresh Kumar (BJP – Rajajinagar); B.N. Vijaykumar (BJP – Jayanagar) and Ashwathnarayana C.N. (BJP –Malleswaram).

B.PAC, whose agenda is to improve Bangalore’s infrastructure, had expressed its conditional support — and partial finance — to 14 contestants from 12 constituencies regardless of their party affiliation. It said it had picked people with a clean record who would also work towards its vision for Bangalore.

Two Lok Satta Party candidates — Ashwin Mahesh and Meenakshi Bharath — polled the third highest number of votes in their respective constituencies, holding their own against party-backed warhorses.

They lost

B.PAC had also endorsed B.K. Chandrashekar (Basavangudi), Tejasvini Gowda (Bangalore South) and N.L. Narendra Babu (Mahalakshmi Layout) — who all lost.