From the Jnanabharathi campus to the chair of the Council.

Puttanna's public life began on campus. He was a student leader at Government Arts College in Bengaluru and was later elected president of the Jnanabharathi student union at Bangalore University, where he completed his M.A. in History. For more than a decade after that he sat on the university's governing bodies, including the Senate, the Syndicate, the Finance Committee and the Academic Council. He saw at first hand how the institutions where teachers work are actually run.

In 2002 the teachers of Bengaluru sent him to the Karnataka Legislative Council for the first time. They have returned him four times since, in 2008, 2014, 2020 and 2024. His colleagues in the Council twice elected him Deputy Chairman (2009–11 and 2014–15), and in August 2026 he was appointed pro-tem Chairman, presiding over the House until a new Chairman was elected.

He joined the Indian National Congress in March 2023. In the February 2024 by-election the Congress fielded him in the Bangalore Teachers' Constituency, where he defeated the joint BJP–JD(S) candidate by 1,507 votes. The press described it as the alliance's first defeat in Karnataka. In December 2025 the Congress leadership renominated him for the 2026 election.

His work in the Council is practical: he chairs the Council's Special House Committee on the recognition and renewal of private aided and unaided schools, has pressed for teachers to be freed from electoral-roll and other non-teaching duties, and has argued for stronger research in public universities.