A year after Assembly poll defeat, Somanna enters NDA govt

The 73-year-old leader, who was defeated in Varuna by CM Siddaramaiah and Chamarajanagar in the 2023 state elections, had made his Lok Sabha poll debut this time.

With two former Karnataka CMs — Basavaraj Bommai and Jagadish Shettar — both Lingayats, entering the Lok Sabha, Somanna, a five-time MLA and two-time MLC, was initially not considered a favourite. The name of four-time MP P C Gaddigoudar was also doing the rounds.

Somanna had come into the BJP fold in the aftermath of ‘Operation Lotus’ in 2008, engineered by former CM B S Yediyurappa.

After a public fallout with the Lingayat strongman and his son B Y Vijayendra, Karnataka BJP unit chief, Congress had sent feelers to him but the BJP leadership managed to retain him after senior BJP leader Pralhad Joshi pacified the disgruntled leader in January this year.

Joshi, who was Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines in the previous Modi government, is also among the five Karnataka MPs who will be part of the Modi-led NDA government.

A five-time MP, Joshi, who belongs to the Brahmin community, won Dharwad by a margin of about 97,000 votes. Considered a close aide of Modi and Union Minister Amit Shah, Joshi shares strong ties with the RSS.

Another face from Karnataka in the Modi Cabinet is Shobha Karandlaje, a Vokkaliga and a Minister of State in the last government. Considered close to Yediyurappa, she won her third Lok Sabha polls this year from Bangalore North constituency. The BJP leadership was forced to shift her from Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency after local BJP workers launched a “Go Back Shobha” campaign ahead of the elections.

The other two MPs who are part of the Council of Ministers from Karnataka are JD(S) Mandya MP H D Kumaraswamy and Nirmala Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha member.