Pratap Simha is a Member of Parliament from the 17th Lok Sabha of India. He was also a member of 16th Lok Sabha of India.He was born in Sakleshpura, Hassana. He represents Mysore constituency of Karnataka and he is the President of Yuva Morcha Bharatiya Janata Party, Karnataka. He won the Mysore Lok Sabha seat in 2019 with a margin of 1.39 Lakh votes by defeating the Congress candidate. Also he is the only candidate in history of Mysore lok sabha constituency to secure more than 5 lakh votes in both 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Career
As journalist
Simha joined the Kannada-language newspaper Vijaya Karnatakain 1999 as a trainee. He was later elevated as the editor and functioned under senior editorVishweshwar Bhat during the time. He wrote his column under the title Bettale Jagattu espousing Hindutva and being fiercely critical of anybody opposing it. Writing an article for the Outlook in 2014, he claimed that with his book Narendra Modi: Yaaru Thuliyada Haadi written in 2008, Simha "introduc Modi to Karnataka." Expressing his desire to contest from the Udupi Chikmagalur constituency as a member of the BJP in the 2014 general election, his candidature was accepted by the party, but was asked to contest from Mysore. Then a journalist with Kannada Prabha, Simha resigned in April 2014 before beginning his electoral campaign, and subsequently winning the seat. He summed up: "In 33 days, I had gone from columnist to parliamentarian."
Described as "temperamental", Simha's tenure as an MP was marked by several controversies. He was a vocal against government of Karnataka's birthday celebrations of Tipu Sultan starting 2015. He voiced that Sultan could be a "role model only for Islamists" and that the Chief MinisterSiddaramaiah was "encouraging Jihadists" in the State. In 2017, against this backdrop, and police's prohibitory orders against taking procession of Hanuman Jayanti's organizers in Hunsur, a town in his constituency, Simha was arrested after he violated the prohibitory orders. In a widely circulated video, he was seen subsequently threatening the police officials and questioning their intent of "restricting" celebration of festivals of the Hindu faith, and barging through the barricade in his car. In February 2017, Simha received criticism after he compared Gurmehar Kaur, a student of Delhi University who spoke against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student body affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to gangster Dawood Ibrahim. Simha courted controversy again in November that year while making statements against actor Prakash Raj after the latter questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence following "certain killings" in the country. Simha had tweeted, "Being sad due to son's death, having left your wife and ran behind a dancer, Mr. Raj, do you have any right to say anything to Yogi, Modi". He was subsequently sent a legal notice to by Raj calling for an unconditional public apology, and that failing which he would "press criminal charges" against him. He agreed to Prakash raj comments and apologized publicly for his conduct
