ALL SANTHOSH'S MEN

The BJP's re-engineering of Karnataka

- GREESHMA KUTHAR

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ON THE NIGHT of 13 October 2022, Harish Poonja was returning by road from Mangaluru to his home constituency in Belthangady, on the foothills of the Western Ghats in coastal Karnataka. A third of the way into the journey, near the fish market in Farangipete town, his vehicle was hustling for space on the road with a white Scorpio. The occupants of both cars got out of their vehicles and a brief altercation ensued. The Scorpio then sped away. The police soon registered a case against the Scorpio driver, with minor charges pertaining to wrongful restraint and criminal intimidation. "The accused does not have any prior criminal cases and we have not found any weapon on him," Rishikesh Sonawane, the district's then superintendent of police, told the New Indian Express. "The motive was road rage." But two days later, as the press began playing up the Muslim identity of the Scorpio's owner, the incident acquired a peculiarly religious colour.

Poonja, at 40, is one of the youngest members of Karnataka's legislative assembly, and is part of a new generation of leadership that the Bharatiya Janata Party has pushed to its fore. Before he rose to power, he had only a short career as a lawyer in the Karnataka High Court and as the president of the BJP's youth wing in the state. Like his peers, and unlike much of the previous senior leadership of the party in Karnataka, Poonja was brought up by, and traces his political lineage to, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.