Lukas had left the party in December after a councilor, Kris Kärner, who had made social media posts containing calls for political violence and racist content, was included in the Isamaa faction in Estonia's city.

With Kärner's expulsion from Isamaa after a subsequent outburst, Lukas said this removed all barriers to his sitting with Isamaa at the Tartu City Council.

Kärner had left Isamaa as a party in September last year – he had only joined in February – but electoral rules meant he was locked in on Isamaa's list at the October 2025 local elections. He won a seat, polling 1,597 votes, the fourth-highest tally of any elected deputy in Tartu, and so sat with Isamaa's political group.

Kärner was expelled from the Isamaa faction two weeks ago after stating in a livestream that if he had a child, it would have been a pity for that child to have "missed out" on the Holocaust.

Lukas, who is also a sitting MP and a former government minister, won the second-best result in Tartu at the last elections, with 4,362 votes.

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