BJP Karnataka list takeaways: Hindutva poster boy out, second chance for two

The BJP has dropped a poster boy of Hindutva in Karnataka, Anantkumar Hegde, and has given a fresh lease of life to two losing candidates from the Karnataka Assembly polls of 2023, including former CM Jagadish Shettar who left the party in 2023, in its list of four candidates from the state announced on Sunday night.

The BJP has announced the candidature of former minister K Sudhakar for the Chikkaballapur seat. Sudhakar lost the Assembly polls in 2023 but is considered to have deep pockets and the ear of a section of the BJP national leadership. The BJP has retained its MP Raja Amareshwar Naik, for the Raichur (ST-reserved) seat.

The BJP, which won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka in 2019, earlier announced a first list of 20 candidates, with nine changes of candidates. The BJP is in an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and is expected to leave the three constituencies of Mandya, Hassan, and Kolar vacant for the JD(S) to field its candidates. The party has yet to announce a candidate for Chitradurga, which is reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates.

In a major change, the BJP dropped Anantkumar Hegde, a five-time MP from Uttara Kannada, and has replaced him with former Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kaggeri, 62.

Both Hegde, 55, and Kaggeri are from the Brahmin community and rely on the hardcore Hindutva politics of coastal Karnataka to carry the day in elections. Hegde has been a poster boy of Hindutva in Karnataka and his political rise was linked to the Ram Mandir movement in the 1990s.

The BJP won Uttara Kannada in 2019 with a resounding margin of 4.79 lakh votes. Hegde has however been a source of embarrassment for the BJP in recent times with his public statements on changing the