The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) first list of 20 out of 28 Lok Sabha candidates for Karnataka, comes as a pleasant surprise for supporters of former Chief Minister, B. S. Yediyurappa. The BJP stalwart who was virtually sidelined during the Assembly polls 2023, and the shots were being called by senior leader, B. L. Santosh. However, this time it seems that Yediyurappa has played a major role in the nominations.

The list also indicates that Yediyurappa’s son B. Y. Vijayendra, the state party president, has also played a major role in influencing the BJP high command in choosing the candidates. To that extent, Yediyurappa should be happy with the developments considering how he was treated by Santosh and other leaders in the recent past.

Significantly, BJP’s first list of candidates comes as a shock to at least nine incumbents who have been dropped this time. The constituency of Union minister, Shobha Karandlaje, has been changed from Udupi-Chikmagalur to Bengaluru North.

Consequently, BJP’s new faces will be seen in action in Ballari, Haveri,Davangere,Uddupi – Chikmagalur, Dakshin Karnataka, Tumkuru, Mysuru, Chamrajnagar and Bengaluru North.

Equally important, former Prime Minister Deve Gowda’s son-in-law, Dr. C. N. Manjunath, a well known cardiologist, will debut as BJP’s candidate from Bengaluru Rural. He will be pitted against the powerful D. K. Suresh, brother of deputy CM, D. K. Shivakumar.

The three-time winner is the current sitting MP and wields considerable clout in the constituency. To that effect the debutant, in the normal course, would have found himself in an unenviable position.

Considering his family connection with the Gowdas one can expect to see a tough fight in the Vokkaliga dominated constituency. The Janata Dal-Secular (JDS), under the Gowdas, will back Dr. Manjunath to the hilt in what promises to be an exciting contest, if not bitter .

Intriguingly, the cardiologist is not contesting on a JDS ticket because under the seat sharing arrangement between the allies, Gowda’s party will get three seats to fight on separately, with the BJP accounting for the remaining 25. This was admitted by none other than former CM and JDS chief H. D. Kumaraswamy in Hassan on Wednesday.

Obviously, senior leaders of the two parties have spent considerable time in resolving the sensitive issue by striking a compromise. In other words, the BJP has surrendered one seat to accommodate Dr. Manjunath, whose reluctance to join politics was no secret.

Till the time of writing though, the renowned doctor, who retired recently as director of the Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, is not a member of any political party. He, however, is expected to become a BJPmember soon, according to party sources.

Meanwhile, Yediyurappa, the Lingayat strongman has also succeeded in convincing the party high command to pick Kota Srinivas Poojary, the leader of the Opposition in the legislative council, for the Udupi-Chikmagalur seat which was earlier held by Shobha Karandlaje.

Reports suggest that the party high command was all set to drop her name from its list, as her constituents were not happy with her performance and had complained against her. Karandlaje, a close associate of Yediyurappa, however, should be grateful to the former CM for ensuring that she at least got to contest from Bengaluru North.

Yediyurappa and his son were also instrumental in getting a ticket for S. Balaraj to contest from Chamrajananagar, (a reserved constituency). Balaraj had drifted to the Congress earlier, but the two BJP leaders had managed to get him back into the party.

Of equal interest in the BJP list is the nomination of former CM, Basvaraj Bommai,who will contest from the Haveri Lok Sabha seat for the first time. The party has also renominated big names like Tejasvi Surya from Bengaluru South, Union Ministers Prahlad Joshi from Dharwad and Bhagvant Khuba from Bidar.

One of the main losers this time is Pratap Simha who was the sitting MP from Mysuru-Kodagu. He was at the centre of the storm relating to the breach of Parliament security. On December 13 last year, two intruders jumped into the chambers of the Lok Sabha from the visitors’ gallery, raising slogans. The visitors’ passes were issued by Simha.

Predictably, there was a furore in Parliament with the Opposition MPs targeting Simha,urging the government to probe the incident, while demanding action against the Member of Parliament.

Simha has now been replaced by a fresh face in Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, the scion of the erstwhile Mysore royal family. This is the first time in two decades that a royal family member will contest elections for Lok Sabha. Earlier, Srikantadatta Wadiyar successfully contested the Parliamentary polls four times.

Simha was initially miffed with the decision and even criticised Yaduveer on Wednesday. He appears to have been pacified by the party leadership late as indicated by his keenness to campaign for Yaduveer, now.

In a related development, Deve Gowda and his family took everyone by surprise on Wednesday. when they apologised to the party cadres in Hassan. The Gowdas sought forgiveness for any ‘wrongs’ that may have been committed by the family. It was surprising to see Gowda and his two sons ,H. D. Revanna, and H. D. Kumaraswamy, apologising with folded hands. Revanna’s son, Prajwal, who won the Lok Sabha seat from Hassan in 2019, was also present.

Critics, however, were amused by the development, terming it as typical Gowda family’s ploy on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, considering that Prajwal is set to contest from Hassan on a JDS ticket.

In fact, Kumaraswamy urged the public, and party cadres, to help Prajwal in the coming contest and not punish the Gowda family by defeating him. This appeared to be an election campaign for Prajwal, the sitting MP ,even though his name has not been officially announced.

The former CM urged the supporters to look at his nephew as their own son, and favour him against the Congress candidate,Shrayas Patel. Hassan is a stronghold of the Gowdas.

The JDS leader also took pains to praise the NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding that it had protected the interests of the minorities by releasing Rs 200 crores as grants for schools and hostels run by them.

In the same vein, he dared CM Siddaramaiah to release the contentious caste survey report, while wondering why his government was nervous about it. The survey’s findings have been criticised by the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities.

They feel that the report does an injustice to them by pegging their population at 60 lakhs and 65 lakhs, respectively. The actual figure, the Vokkaligas claim, is around 1.5 crores while the Lingayats assert that their population exceeds two crores.

Considering the opposition from the two dominant communities , the government is finding itself in a tricky situation over the issue.

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