Sumalatha Ambareesh Joins BJP: A Boost For Saffron Party In Mandya

Sumalatha Ambareesh, the independent MP from Mandya in Karnataka, has joined the BJP, as announced on Friday. Welcoming her into the party were prominent BJP leaders including B S Yediyurappa, B Y Vijayendra, R Ashoka, Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, and D V Sadananda Gowda, who greeted the 60-year-old at the party's state headquarters.

Despite earlier seeking a BJP ticket for re-election from Mandya, a seat previously held by her late husband, Sumalatha opted out of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls after the BJP ceded the Mandya seat to its alliance partner JD(S). This decision followed consultations with her supporters and well-wishers in Mandya.

JD(S) state President H D Kumaraswamy, now the alliance's joint candidate from Mandya, had sought Sumalatha's cooperation in the polls during a meeting on Sunday. In the 2019 elections, Sumalatha, with BJP support, won the seat as an independent candidate, defeating the then Chief Minister Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy of JD(S) by a significant margin.

Sumalatha entered politics in 2019 after the Congress, her late husband's party, denied her the ticket for the Mandya seat, which was allocated to the JD(S) as part of their coalition agreement. Her victory in 2019 was attributed to a sympathy wave following her husband's death, as well as support from popular Kannada film stars like Darshan Thoogudeepa and Yash, along with her son Abishek Ambareesh, who campaigned extensively for her.