A blast near the office of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, injured at least eight policemen and eight civilians, authorities said on Wednesday.

Police said the blast could have originated from a motorcycle parked near the party's office. Several party workers were in the building at the time of the explosion around 10:30 a.m. local time (05:00 am GMT) in Malleshwaram, a crowded residential neighborhood in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, NDTV and the Associated Press report.

“The injuries are not very serious and nobody is critically injured,” chief of the Karnataka police, Lalrokhuma Pachau, said. “Two vans, a motorcycle, a scooter and a car were damaged.”

The incident in Karnataka’s capital city comes ahead of key elections scheduled for May 5 in the state, where the BJP is the ruling party.

Karnataka's Home Minister R Ashoka described the blast as a “terrorist activity,” and said the BJP workers were the target.

Federal junior Home Minister RPN Singh said investigators were “looking at all possibilities” and asked people to refrain from spreading rumors.

In February, 17 people died and more than 100 were injured in twin explosions in the southern city of Hyderabad, the first major bomb attack in India since a September 2011 blast outside the Delhi's High Court killed 13 people.

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