HUBBALLI: Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi has been renominated to contest from the Dharwad parliamentary constituency for the upcoming general elections. This will be Joshi’s fifth time contesting from the Dharwad segment and he has won four times consecutively. In a post on X, Joshi expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda, former chief minister BS Yediyurappa and all party leaders for nominating him as the BJP candidate for the Dharwad constituency.
For the first time, it seems, Joshi tried hard to secure the ticket. He probably would have not lobbied so hard when he contested for the first time in 2004, as he then had the backing of late HN Ananthkumar and Jagadish Shettar. However, this time, Shettar himself posed as a strong contender.
Until Shettar’s return from Congress, everything was in favour of Joshi, except for some remote disgruntled voices, that too from followers of Shettar. With the reentry of the former chief minister, the Lingayat lobby had started campaigning and the social media too seemed to lean towards a Lingayat candidate for Dharwad, which was an indirect pitch for Shettar.
As the saffron party’s Lingayat voter base seemed to have eroded in the 2023 Assembly elections, it was reasoned that desertions by Lingayat leaders Shettar and Laxman Savadi were the reason for the loss. The party central leadership too was cautious before making any decision on the constituency, BJP sources said.
It is said that Central Parliamentary Committee member BS Yediyurappa and BJP state unit president BY Vijayendra were behind bringing Shettat back to the party and father and the father-son duo was firmly backing Shettar’s candidature. But the party Central leadership was hesitant as it wanted to use Shettar’s influence in Haveri or Belagavi segments. The party has not yet announced a candidate for Belagavi and it is likely that Shettar would be accommodated there.
In the meantime, former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, an MLA of Shiggaon in Haveri district, will fight his first Lok Sabha elections from the Haveri-Gadag segment. His candidature was speculated right after BJP lost power in the state last year. Fielding a new candidate was inevitable as sitting MP Shivakumar Udasi had refused to contest.
While former minister B Sriramulu has been fielded from the Ballary-ST reserved constituency as expected, dropping incumbent MP Y Devendrappa, the party has denied the ticket to Sanganna Karadi for Koppal, the sitting MP, and decided to field Dr Basavaraj Kavatur.