The importance of Karnataka’s three-time MLA and ex-minister Vinay Kulkarni – convicted on April 17 to life in prison for the 2016 murder of a local BJP rival – for the Congress could be gauged from the point that he was fielded repeatedly from the Dharwad parliamentary seat despite his defeat in its bid to counter the BJP’s dominance in the north Karnataka region.Kulkarni, 58, was pronounced guilty for the 2016 murder of BJP leader Yogesh Goudar, who had been his opponent from his early political innings in the Dharwad zilla parishad. He was seen in the Congress in recent years as a key leader from the dominant Lingayat group, which plays a crucial role in determining poll outcomes across north Karnataka. The community has largely rallied round the BJP since the early 1990s.Kulkarni’s riseShortly after Kulkarni became a Congress MLA from the Dharwad Assembly seat in 2013, the Congress pitted him in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from the Dharwad parliamentary constituency against sitting MP and senior BJP leader Pralhad Joshi, promising him a state minister’s position even in the event of his defeat.Amid the first Narendra Modi wave then, Kulkarni lost the election by 1.13 lakh votes to Joshi but soon went on to become a minister for municipal administration in the first Siddaramaiah-led Congress government.Kulkarni lost his Assembly seat in the 2018 elections, but was again fielded from Dharwad against Joshi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He lost again by 2.05 lakh votes in the second Modi wave, which saw the BJP sweep 27 of the state’s 28 Lok Sabha seats.One of the reasons for the Congress’s reliance on Kulkarni in the Dharwad region was the “go-getter, risk-taker” image that Kulkarni cultivated and his emergence as a key Lingayat politician in a party which has lacked a strong pan-Karnataka Lingayat leader of the likes of BJP stalwart B S Yediyurappa.Must Read | ‘Grim portrait of criminalization of politics’: Special court in verdict against Karnataka Congress MLA for 2016 murder of BJP workerThe Congress pushed Kulkarni to the forefront of Dharwad politics in the hope of countering Joshi, a Brahmin leader dependent on the support of local Lingayat leaders to win the polls.Story continues below this adHowever, Kulkarni’s entry in the Dharwad fray in 2014 and 2019 proved counterproductive as it united other local Lingayat leaders cutting across party lines, including the Congress, against him.Political backgroundKulkarni who became an MLA for the first time in 2004 in the Dharwad Rural seat – when he had contested as an Independent after being denied a Congress ticket – belongs to an influential political family.His grandfather M K Kulkarni was a four-time Congress MLA from the Navalgund seat in the Dharwad belt from 1978 to 1989 before losing the seat in 1994. His great grandfather had also reportedly won this seat in 1972. Kulkarni entered politics as a student union leader in Karnatak University before going on to dominate the politics of the Dharwad town municipality and the zilla panchayat. Soon after his victory as an Independent in 2004, he returned to the Congress fold.Kulkarni was fielded by the Congress in the 2008 Assembly polls from the Dharwad seat, which he lost by 723 votes to the BJP’s Seema Masuti. He, however, won the seat by 18,230 votes in the 2013 polls to emerge as a rising Congress star in northern Karnataka.Story continues below this adKulkarni, who discontinued his studies in a BSc agriculture programme, describes himself as an agriculturist in his poll affidavits and operates a dairy farm, Vinaya Diary, in Dharwad. In the 2023 polls, he declared over Rs 19 crore of assets, including over 50 acres of land holdings in the Dharwad belt.Kulkarni is said to be fond of horse rearing and fancy cars. He was reported to have been given a Mercedes Benz by a woman accused in multiple cheating cases in Bengaluru after she failed to repay a loan of Rs 24 crore. He had allegedly used her to get a key witness turn hostile in the Goudar murder case.Political murderKulkarni lost the 2018 Assembly election amid the buzz of his involvement in the 2016 murder of Yogesh Goudar, which had allegedly been hushed up during the tenure of the then Congress government.His role as the “main conspirator” in the Goudar killing surfaced in 2020 after the BJP dispensation, which took the helm of the state government in 2019, handed its probe to the CBI. According to some reports, Kulkarni made attempts to open channels to join the BJP after the CBI began unearthing findings against him in the case.Story continues below this adAfter being barred from entering Dharwad by the courts on the CBI’s request, Kulkarni toyed with the idea of fielding his wife Shivaleela from Dharwad for the 2023 state polls. But the Congress eventually gave him its ticket and he managed to win back the seat by 18,037 votes without personally campaigning in the constituency.It was during his 2014-2018 tenure as municipal administration minister and as Dharwad district in-charge minister that Kulkarni allegedly plotted the murder of Goudar after feeling slighted by his questioning at a Dharwad zilla parishad meeting about lack of drinking water for the Hebballi village, which Goudar represented.As per local accounts, Kulkarni and Goudar, despite belonging to the same Panchamasali sect of the Lingayat community, had been fiercely hostile towards each other. One of Goudar’s two brothers, Uday Goudar, had been killed by a local gang, with Goudar brothers reportedly retaliating by killing one of the gangsters.Yogesh Goudar’s surviving brother Gurunath Goudar told the court during Kulkarni’s trial that though the latter had previously facilitated Yogesh’s election in the Dharwad town council, the latter suspected that the Congress leader later scuttled his efforts to become the Dharwad zilla panchayat president to check his political growth.Story continues below this adThe CBI probe revealed that Kulkarni contacted an aide Basavaraj Muttagi, who later turned approver for the agency, to hire a Bengaluru gang to kill Goudar, and a Dharwad gang to claim responsibility for the murder by linking it to a local real estate dispute.The special court described the findings in the case as a “grim portrait of the criminalisation of politics” before convicting Kulkarni and 15 others to life imprisonment on charges of murder. A police officer was convicted for initially misleading the probe but two others were given “benefits of doubt”.Congress stanceFollowing his conviction, Kulkarni is set to be disqualified as an MLA. The Congress has however defended him.Karnataka Congress president and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar claimed that Kulkarni is a “victim of a BJP conspiracy”. “Vinay Kulkarni has also been trapped in this conspiracy. There are still 30 days left to appeal, and I have spoken with his family. He has sworn on god that he did not commit this crime. I still believe in him to this day,” he said.Story continues below this ad“The court’s verdict must be respected. In my view, he has not done anything wrong. I will work to provide moral strength to his family. Workers should not lose courage. Truth will ultimately prevail. Many conspiracies were hatched against me too. I suffered a great deal. In the end, I got justice in the Supreme Court,” said Shivakumar, who had earlier visited Kulkarni in prison.