Bhatkal: The BJP continued its dominance over coastal Karnataka by retaining all three Parliamentary seats – Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi-Chikkamagaluru – in the 18th Lok Sabha elections.

Despite not fielding its incumbent Members of Parliament — Ananth Kumar Hegde, Nalin Kumar Kateel and Shobha Karandlaje — the party secured comfortable victories in all three constituencies. Sources said that the BJP's emphasis on maintaining its “Hindutva narrative” played a crucial role in retaining these seats, though the winning margins for all three candidates were lower in 2024 compared to the 2019 elections. This decline in the winning margin indicates that the Congress had made some inroads into the BJP's vote share.

The BJP won Uttara Kannada seat for seventh consecutive time since 1996 polls, except in 1999 election which was won by Margaret Alva of the Congress. This time Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri, a former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and a former Minister, won this seat for the BJP. Kageri made it to the Lok Sabha for the first time by defeating former MLA Anjali Nimbalkar of the Congress. However Ananth Kumar Hegde, incumbent Member of Parliament who won from the constituency for six times, remaining neutral without campaigning for Mr. Kageri did not make any impact on the victory of Mr. Kageri. Though Mr. Kageri lost last year’s Assembly election from Sirsi segment, he managed to enter the Lok Sabha.

The BJP even won the Dakshina Kannada seat for the ninth consecutive term since the 1991 elections. This seat, along with Bengaluru South, is one of only two Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka consistently won by the BJP. Brijesh Chowta, a former Indian Army Captain and the Secretary of the State unit of the BJP, won from Dakshina Kannada by defeating Padmaraj R. Poojary, a novice advocate from the Congress.

In Udupi-Chikkamagaluru, the BJP maintained control for the fifth consecutive term since the 2004 elections, except for the 2012 byelection won by the Congress. Kota Srinivas Poojary, the BJP candidate and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, defeated K. Jayaprakash Hegde of the Congress, a former Minister and former chairman of the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission.

Poojary is new to the Lok Sabha, whereas Hegde had previously won the 2012 byelection for the Congress. Notably, Laxmi R. Hebbalkar, district in-charge Minister for Udupi, did not campaign for Congress candidate  Hegde, who had previously faced defeats in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the same constituency.