The 47-year-old Mysuru MP, hailing from Vokkaliga heartland Hassan district’s Sakleshpur taluk, holds a postgraduate degree in mass communication and journalism and was known for prolific writing in his column, Bettale Jagattu (an unfiltered view of the world), in a Kannada daily.
Author of 22 books, Simmha jumped into politics just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He won against AH Vishwanath of Congress by 31,608 votes with the Vokkaliga caste factor working in his favour. In 2019, he widened the victory margin to nearly 1.4 lakh votes, defeating Congress-JD(S) alliance candidate CH Vijayashankar.
Eyeing a hat-trick in the 2024 elections, Simmha was hoping to further extend the lead to 2 lakh votes with PM Modi’s express support. But the security breach in Parliament – which hit the MP like a beamer – might affect his chances of easily landing a ticket for the general elections for the third time in a row.
The MP claimed that he was the first to write a biography of PM Narendra Modi as early as 2008 – six years before Modi became the country’s PM – and it was released by BJP ideologue Arun Jaitley. Simmha said Modi liked the book so much so that he got it translated to the Gujarati language. His relationship with many party seniors in the constituency coming under strain in recent years, Simmha was banking on his image burnished as a leader with RSS ideology to get the ticket for the next year’s elections.
In this regard, the MP recently changed his name from ‘Prathap Simha‘ to ‘Pratap Simmha’, hoping for a good turnaround in the 2024 hustings.
Known for repeated attacks on controversial Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, Simmha led protests against celebrations of Tipu Jayanti as well as Mahisha Dasara atop Chamundi hills in Mysuru, besides launching salvos at a senior state leader of the party for the construction of a dome-like structure atop a bus stop on National Highway 766 near a private college in Mysuru. But Wednesday’s security breach came as a political curveball that Simmha was not ready to face, especially when he was looking all set to get the script right for the elections next year.
