Civil contractor, celluloid, and politics: Munirathna is no stranger to controversy

In July 2019, when the big-budget Darshan-starrer Kurukshetra was gearing up for release, its producer Munirathna had bigger plans.

He defected to BJP, contributing to the fall of the Kumaraswamy-led coalition government. 

Five years later, Munirathna, the 4-time Rajarajeshwarinagar MLA, is in jail following his arrest on charges of corruption and allegedly making casteist slurs against Dalits and Vokkaligas. 

Munirathna’s public life is peppered with controversies, right from 2010 when he - a civil contractor - was first elected as a corporator from Yeshwantpur ward (no. 37).

The same year saw him being booked in connection with the collapse of a compound wall that led to the death of a 17-year-old girl student.

Three years later, making his Assembly poll debut on a Congress ticket, he was booked for ‘threatening’ a poll official on duty. He became MLA with 37 per cent vote share. In 2018, he retained his seat with 42 per cent vote share. 

Munirathna’s brother, the late S Krishnamurthy alias Korangu Krishna, was a rowdy-sheeter in Bengaluru in the 1980s and 90s. Notwithstanding his brother’s exploits, Munirathna himself rose rapidly. He found success in the film line and bankrolled hits like Raktha Kanneeru, Anatharu & Katari Veera Surasundarangi.

Outside films, Munirathna remained under the spotlight. In May 2017, corporator Manjula Narayanaswamy was allegedly manhandled by Munirathna’s supporters. Two other women corporators joined her to protest against the MLA. 

In 2018, Munirathna suffered a double blow. In March, he was charge-sheeted by CID in the Rs 1,500-crore fake bill scam. Next, days before the Assembly polls, a huge stash of voter IDs were found in an apartment with links to Munirathna, leading to postponement of polls in RR Nagar.

After joining BJP in 2019, Munirathna had to face backlash from B L Santhosh-backed Tulsi Muniraju Gowda, his rival in Rajarajeshwarinagar.

Yet, in the 2020 bypoll, BJP’s Munirathna won handsomely against Congress’ Kusuma Hanumantharayappa and became the horticulture minister. This also started his rivalry with Congress’ D K Brothers - Shivakumar and Suresh. 

Munirathna’s popularity and financial muscle is such that both national parties have electorally depended on the 60-year-old. 

Having switched parties, Munirathna has seldom found the need for ideological consistency. A vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi while in Congress, Munirathna soon adapted and picked up the BJP’s political rhetoric. 

Ahead of the 2023 polls, Munirathna took on the D K brothers. The election, he said, was between him and Suresh. In an intense fight that followed, Munirathna narrowly edged out Kusuma, winning by just over 10,000 votes.

He also played a crucial role in the victory of BJP’s C N Manjunath over Suresh in the Lok Sabha polls, furthering his enmity with the brothers. 

Itching to settle scores, Congress, especially Suresh, is now trying to project Munirathna as anti-Vokkaliga. In a political career spanning nearly a decade and a half, Munirathna faces his biggest test yet.