No, at the time of introduction, it was mainly for merchants and migrant workers from South Tamil Nadu (Tirunelveli, Kanniya kumari etc). It was only a weekly at that time, and was well patronized.
In the late 90's and the early 2000's, when Bangalore grew rapidly, more people from the south started to migrate to Bangalore instead of going to faraway places like Bombay or Delhi.
From that time, the demand to Bangalore increased in these trains.