BENGALURU: In a boost to the BJP in Pulakeshinagar assembly constituency, which comes under Bangalore North parliamentary constituency, former Congress MLA R Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy will join the saffron party on Wednesday.
Akhanda told The New Indian Express that BJP candidate for Bangalore North Shobha Karandlaje met him last week and invited him to join the saffron party. “I agreed to her offer and will be officially joining the BJP on Wednesday,” the former MLA said. Akhanda contested from Pulakeshinagar on a BSP ticket in the 2023 Assembly elections and lost to AC Srinivasa of the Congress.
Pulakeshinagar has a voter population of 2,36,000, which includes around 85,000 Muslims and 65,000 SCs/STs, followed by others. “With me joining the BJP, the Muslim vote in Pulakeshinagar, which is consolidated in favour of the Congress, will split. We may be on equal footing. People in my constituency will stand by me,” he said.
Considered one of the tallest young Dalit leaders in Karnataka, Akhanda had won the 2018 Assembly elections against Prasanna Kumar of JDS by 81,626 votes.
Akhanda, who is close to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, had quit the Congress after he was denied the ticket to contest last year’s assembly elections on the ground that the dominant minority community was allegedly upset with him after large-scale violence had broken out in DJ Halli and adjoining areas in Bengaluru on August 11, 2020.
The violence followed a blasphemous post on social media, allegedly by Akhanda’s nephew, in which a 3,000-strong mob had vandalised DJ Halli police station, public and private property and torched Akhanda’s house. Three people had died in police firing.