Udupi Assembly result: BJP’s Yashpal Suvarna, Bajrang Dal activist, wins by over 30,000 votes
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Yashpal Anand Suvarna won the sensitive Udupi Assembly seat by a huge margin of over 30,000 votes defeating Congress candidate Prasadraj Kanchan. While Suvarna, one of the most hardline voices of the hijab controversy, bagged 97,079 votes, Congress candidate Prasadraj Kanchan bagged 64,303 votes.
JD(S) candidate Dakshath R Shetty bagged 845 votes.
Suvarna, 44, has been the most talked about candidate in the 2023 Karnataka elections after the BJP gave him a ticket in its first list. The saffron party shunted sitting BJP MLA Raghpathi Bhat and gave ticket to Suvarna, who was contesting for the first time. Suvarna has been the most vocal anti-hijab voice that erupted during the hijab controversy in Udupi in 2021 when six girls of the government women’s PU college launched a protest against college authorities for attending classes wearing hijab.
The case which created a major stir in the state, also witnessed some Hindu boys too started wearing saffron stoles to a few colleges. The Muslim students had approached the court, and Suvarna, at that time, had called them “terrorists”, reported The Indian Express. He also said that those who do not follow the law of the land are “anti-nationals”.
In his late 20s, he was known as a cow vigilante, and in 2005, he was one of the prime accused in the stripping and parading of a father and his son who were allegedly transporting calves. He was later acquitted by a special trial court.
His family is in the fishing business, and he is also the president of the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts’ Cooperative Fish Marketing Federation.
He is the vice-president of the Development Committee of Udupi Government PU Girls’ College, the place from where the hijab row started.