Palace to politics: Mysuru royal family scion to contest on BJP ticket; two sitting Bengaluru MPs retained

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on March 13 released the names of 20 candidates in Karnataka for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, which included an interesting pick.

Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar (YKC), the titular head of the Mysore royal family, was chosen to replace two-term sitting MP Pratap Simha.

He’s not the first in his family to step into politics. His predecessor Srikantadatta Narasimharaja (SDNR) Wadiyar contested elections in both Congress and BJP tickets between 1984 and 2004. He won four times (all Congress) and lost twice (one each from Congress and BJP)

YKC was adopted by Pramoda Devi Wadiyar a little over a year after her husband SDNR died in 2013. YKC, an economics graduate from the University of Massachusetts was crowned the new ‘maharaja’ of the 600-year-old Wadiyar dynasty, in 2015 at the age of 23.

According to sources, the BJP has been reaching out to the royal family in an attempt to persuade YKC to contest elections on a BJP ticket. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the royal family on multiple occasions in Mysuru, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah also visited them in the lead-up to the Assembly elections last year.

Sources said that the party tried to push for YKC’s candidature through his father-in-law and BJP leader from Rajasthan, Harshavardhan Singh of the Dungarpur royal family.

BJP considers YKC to be an influential candidate who holds the potential to tip the scales in favour of the party in the Mysuru region, traditionally a stronghold of the Congress and also the home district of CM Siddaramaiah.

The Mysore royal family enjoys respect in Karnataka’s cultural capital and their home, Mysuru, for their contributions to education, irrigation, and other developments.