By selecting Kishor Kumar Puttur as candidate for Council bypoll, BJP continues tradition of fielding new faces

The Party had fielded six new faces from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts in the 2023 Assembly elections and two in the 2024 LS polls

The BJP seems to have continued the practice of giving opportunity to new faces when it chose Kishor Kumar Puttur as the party candidate for byelection from Dakshina Kannada Local Authorities constituency for the Karnataka Legislative Council on Tuesday.

At the same time, the party indicated that caste-based politics, which recently crept into the BJP folds, becomes irrelevant when the BJP was confident of the victory. Mr. Puttur belongs to Bhandari (Savitha Samaja) community that does not have significant numbers in the coastal region when compared to communities of other aspirants.

Kota Srinivas Poojary, MP, had secured 3,672 votes in the December 2021 elections while Congress’ Manjunath Bhandary had secured 2,079 votes in the December 2021 elections to the Council from DK Local Authorities constituency. The BJP apparently has more members in the local bodies to the Congress.

Dominant communities

Prime contenders for ticket, former Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dakshina Kannada BJP president Satish Kumpala, and former Minister Pramod Madhwaraj from Udupi belonged to strong and dominant communities of Bunt, Billava, and Mogaveera in the region. Yet, the BJP chose Mr. Puttur who rose through the ranks of Sangh Parivar for the byelection. Names of former MLC K. Monappa Bhandary, BJP in-charge for DK, and Udupi Uday Kumar Shetty were also doing the rounds.

Party insiders believe that the practice was continuation of the policy followed during the 2023 elections to the Karnataka Legislative Council where it fielded new faces in Byndoor, Kundapura, Udupi and Kaup constituencies in Udupi district and Bhagirathi Marulya and Asha Thmmappa from Sullia and Puttur constituencies, respectively, in Dakshina Kannada district.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections too, the party repeated the practice by fielding Capt. Brijesh Chowta from Dakshina Kannada instead of three-time winner Mr. Kateel and Kota Srinivas Poojary from Udupi-Chikkamagaluru constituency. It was the first direct election faced by Mr. Poojary though he had been an MLC from DK Local Authorities constituency since 2008.

While a section in the BJP believes that Mr. Puttur was chosen with the sole intention of denying ticket to Mr. Kateel who was making hectic efforts to enter the Council after being denied ticket for the Lok Sabha elections, some others believe that loyalty to the Sangh Parivar got Mr. Puttur ticket.

Published - October 02, 2024 08:12 pm IST