Ananth Kumar - A tech-savvy leader who built BJP from scratch in Karnataka

BENGALURU: Union Minister Ananth Kumar, who represented the Bengaluru South parliamentary constituency six times since 1996, died in the wee hours of Monday in Bengaluru, leaving a big void in the party which will be hard to fill in the days to come.

The 59-year-old Union Parliamentary Affairs and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister was not keeping well for some time and was on the ventilator support for the last few days. He was undergoing treatment at Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Basavanagudi after his health deteriorated. 

A staunch RSS ideologue, a hard boiled organisation man, Bengaluru's "most loved" MP and the first person to speak in Kannada in the United Nations are some of the connotations associated with Union Minister Ananth Kumar.

Ananth Kumar, an extremely popular BJP leader is often credited with building BJP in Karnataka from the scratch along with another senior party leader BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka, with whom he later developed serious differences of opinion when the Lingayat strongman was at the helm of affairs as Chief Minister of Karnataka.

Kumar was born on July 22, 1959 in Bangalore, Karnataka to HN Narayan Sastry and Girija Shastry. 

He graduated in the faculty of Arts (BA) from KS Arts College, Hubli affiliated to the Karnataka University and later, completed his bachelors in law (LLB) from JSS Law College affiliated to the Karnataka University.  

Having been influenced by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology, he was a member of its student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. 

During the Emergency, he was imprisoned along with thousands of other student activists by the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government. He was elected as the State Secretary of the ABVP and, later, became its National Secretary in 1985.

He later joined BJP and was nominated as the State President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. He was then made National Secretary of the party in 1996.

He was elected from Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996. 

In January 1998, ahead of the General Election that year, Kumar became the first Indian politician to host an independent website when he launched www.dataindia.com and www.ananth.org - a feat which earned him the tag of a tech-savvy leader. 

He was re-elected and was inducted into the Union Cabinet headed by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Minister for Civil Aviation and was also the youngest cabinet minister in that government. 

In 1999, he was re-elected to a third consecutive term and became a Cabinet minister in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. 

He handled various ministries like Tourism, Sports & Youth Affairs, Culture, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Parliamentary Affairs in his illustrious political career.

Because of his impressive organisational capabilities, he was appointed as the president of the Karnataka state unit of BJP in 2003 and led the state unit which became the single-largest party in the Legislative Assembly and won the highest number of Lok Sabha seats in 2004 in Karnataka. 

In 2004, he was appointed National General Secretary of the BJP contributing to building the party in MP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and other states.

Kumar represented Bengaluru South constituency in the Lok Sabha since 1996 - yet another indicator of his immense popularity among the masses in Karnataka. 

On the personal front, he was married to Dr Tejaswini and the couple have two daughters - Aishwarya and Vijeta. 

Political leaders cutting across the party lines have condoled his death. 

(With Agency inputs)