Winning Hassan to challenging JD(S) dominance, Preetham Gowda is BJP’s Vokkaliga wild card

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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 Preethams presence at an ongoing Bengaluru-Mysuru padayatraby the BJP-JD(S) to protest alleged corruption by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah...

The Deve Gowda family sees Preetham as one of the catalysts behind the distribution of pen drives containing alleged sexual assault videos of Deve Gowdas grandson and former Hassan MP Prajwal Revanna (33) during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka...

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 BJPs younger leaders, with no room for internal understandings as is the norm among the older leaders, according to people who know him...