Mandya: Darshan Puttannaiah, a lone candidate from Karnataka Sarvodaya Party, has won the Assembly election from Melkote Constituency in Mandya. Incidentally, he is the second contestant from the party to enter Vidhana Soudha, after his father Late K. S. Puttannaiah. Farmers consider him as their new hope, who is second-time lucky now. Here’s what we know so far about Darshan Puttannaiah in five points:
*It’s a total turnaround for Darshan Puttannaiah, 40, a techie-turned politician, who had set up a software firm in US in 2015. He was the founder and chief executive of Qwinix Technologies. His firm Qwinix was headquarterd in Denver had an off-site office in Mysuru and had around 70 employees.
*The sudden death of his father and then Melkote MLA K. S. Puttannaiah in February 2018 turned his life upside down. Given that his father was a popular farmers’ leader, it was hard for Darshan to ignore the hopes the farmers had in his father. He decided to shift his base from US and contested from Swaraj India party in the last Assembly election. But he was unlucky.
*Hoping to carry his father’s legacy, Darshan wants to take farmers’ voice to Vidhana Soudha. During the run up to the elections, he has mainly spoken of focusing on farmers and the issues that are concerned to them. From minimum support price to financial literacy and address rising debts that claimed many lives of farmers, he wants to help farmers who are the backbone of the economy.
*Although, supported by the Congress, Darshan during the campaigning had stated that he would not be under any obligation to support the party, in case of hung Assembly, making his stand clear.
*Melkote in Mandya, the Sugar Bowl of Karnataka, has majority of farmering community and has been the epic centre of farmer movement in Karnataka.