Bengaluru: Posters featuring Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Preetham J. Gowda, just off the busy Bengaluru-Mysuru highway on the road in Mandya, were set on fire in the dead of Wednesday night.
The 42-year-old former BJP MLA from Hassan — a Vokkaliga stronghold of Janata Dal (Secular) and the home district of former prime minister Deve Gowda — is at the center of a political storm casting a shadow on the fragile BJP-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka.
The torching of posters Wednesday was triggered by Preetham’s presence at an ongoing Bengaluru-Mysuru padayatra by the BJP-JD(S) to protest alleged corruption by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
On Wednesday, JD(S) leader and H.D. Deve Gowda’s younger son H.D. Kumaraswamy, standing in a campaign vehicle in Mandya alongside state BJP chief B.Y. Vijayendra, had been delivering a speech when the crowd around him broke out into chants.
“Gowdara Gowda… Preetham Gowda (loosely translates to the biggest of the Gowdas),” chanted Preetham’s supporters, brought to Mandya from Hassan as the leader, dressed in a deep rust-red shirt and dark shades, slowly made his way through them.
“Remember, this is Mandya,” warned JD(S) supporters, prompting louder chants of “Mandya dalu Gowda (Preetham is a Gowda in Mandya, too)” by the BJP leader’s followers.
At this point, a fight broke out, and police personnel had to rush in to break it up while Preetham quietly exited the scene.
He has since been sent to north Karnataka to spearhead another campaign — and to keep him away from the padayatra in the southern districts and avoid further conflict.
Preetham, the BJP general secretary in Karnataka, is best known for breaking the JD(S) grip on Hassan city in the 2018 state elections. He has since emerged as one of the main, if not the biggest, adversaries to the Deve Gowda family.
Last week, Kumaraswamy, the JD(S) state president, threatened to cancel JD(S) support to the BJP padayatra against the ruling Congress, citing Preetham. “Who is Preetham Gowda? A person who was hell-bent on destroying (H.D.) Deve Gowda’s family…he is being called. I am invited to such programmes. I also have a limit for tolerance,” he said.
The Deve Gowda family sees Preetham as one of the catalysts behind the distribution of pen drives containing alleged sexual assault videos of Deve Gowda’s grandson and former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna (33) during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka.
“Instead of looking into their own family and their internal problems, Preetham is being targeted and made a scapegoat,” said one BJP leader from Karnataka, requesting anonymity.
Also read: ‘Revanna Republic of fear’ — how sexual assault, caste bias & abuse of power defined life in Hassan
‘Those against Deve Gowda family vote for Preetham’
An engineer by qualification, Preetham first secured a cushy job with Reliance and later became the regional head of the clothing brand Levis. His association with BJP leader C.T. Ravi brought him closer to politics.
Preetham is also a staunch supporter of another prominent BJP leader, B.Y. Vijayendra.
He has served in various positions in the BJP youth wing, rapidly climbing up the ranks and clinching the ticket to contest the assembly polls from Hassan, for which he was chosen over several other party veterans. In the 2018 assembly elections, Preetham gave the BJP its first-ever breakthrough in Hassan city by winning the seat.
Sometime in February 2019, at the peak of a defection drama involving the JD(S) and the BJP in Karnataka, a recording of Preetham purportedly stating that “Deve Gowda would die soon and Kumaraswamy is also unwell” and “JD(S) will be history soon” went viral.
In retaliation, JD(S) workers pelted stones at his home in Hassan’s Vidya Nagar.
At the time, Preetham shifted gears and started using a strategy to openly challenge and target the Deve Gowda household and their stranglehold on the district, according to people aware of the developments.
“If you oppose Deve Gowda, you get certain votes. When he found that out, he went ahead with that strategy,” Venugopal, Preetham’s aide from his college days, told ThePrint.
In 2023, Bhavani Revanna, the wife of Deve Gowda’s elder son H.D. Revanna and mother of Prajwal Revanna, wanted to contest against Preetham as relations turned hostile and personal. However, Kumaraswamy denied the ticket to Bhavani and gave it to H.S. Swaroop instead, who defeated Preetham.
According to the people from the district, the family brought together all the enemies of the BJP and Preetham on the same platform to win.
Preetham was one of the early ones to oppose the BJP and JD(S) tie-up ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, saying all efforts to make inroads into the Vokkaliga heartland would be in vain if the coalition were to materialise.
‘Gowdas can’t stand that Vokkaligas support Preetham’
Prajwal Revanna lost the Hassan Lok Sabha seat this year and is now in the custody of a special investigation team (SIT) probing allegations of rape, criminal intimidation, abduction and other charges against him and members of his immediate family.
One FIR related to the case has accused Preetham Gowda of sharing the images and videos purportedly recorded by Prajwal in the course of alleged sexual assault and harassment.
Having built his entire career as the face of resistance in the backdrop of the dominance of Deve Gowda’s family in Hassan, Preetham has repeatedly hit out at the JD(S) first family and protested every hint of reconciliation with the regional party.
In August 2021, he aired his discontent about newly appointed chief minister Basavaraj Bommai visiting the home of Deve Gowda, asking what message it would send to BJP workers who fought against the JD(S).
“Workers expected that Bommai would visit Siddaganga Mutt, Suttur Mutt, Sirigere Mutt, or Adichunchanagiri Mutt after taking oath as CM. But he chose to visit Deve Gowda’s home. This disappointed workers, who fight day and night against JD(S) to strengthen our party. We suffered when they threw stones at our residence,” Preetham had said.
Unlike the old guard of political leaders such as B.S.Yediyurappa, Deve Gowda, and Siddaramaiah, Preetham subscribes to hardline positions common within the BJP’s younger leaders, with no room for internal “understandings” as is the norm among the older leaders, according to people who know him.
Preetham has spared no opportunity to attack the Deve Gowda family, even making personal allegations at times.
“They (Deve Gowda & family) think they own the Vokkaligas and cannot stand the reality that people have rallied behind Preetham,” said the Karnataka BJP leader quoted in the first section.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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