Hegannahalli Narayana Shastry Ananth Kumar (22 July 1959 – 12 November 2018) was an Indian politician affiliated with

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

(BJP). He was the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Parliamentary Affairs of India from 2014 until his death in 2018. Ananth Kumar was an MP from South Bangalore 6 times, Minister of Chemicals and fertilizers from 26 May 2014, and Parliamentary affairs from 2016. He was a member of the

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

for over two decades, having been elected to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

, the lower house, from Bangalore South, from 1996 until his death. He also served as Minister for Civil Aviation, Tourism, Sports, Urban Development, and Poverty Alleviation.

Early life

Ananth Kumar was born in a middle-class

Brahmin Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...

family at

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, Sheshadripuram,

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

, and moved to Hubli in 1979. His father, H. N. Narayan Shastry, was employed with the

Indian Railways Indian Railways is a state-owned enterprise that is organised as a departmental undertaking of the Ministry of Railways (India), Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and operates India's national railway system. , it manages the fou ...

. His family settled in

Hubli Hubli (officially Hubballi) is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka. The twin cities Hubli–Dharwad form the second largest city in the state by area and population and the largest city in North Karnataka. Hubli is in Dharwad district of ...

in 1979–80. His mother Smt Girija Shastry was a social worker associated with the

Bharatiya Jana Sangh The Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh) was a Hindutva political party active in India. It was established on 21 October 1951 in Delhi by three founding members: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Balraj Madhok and Deendayal ...

. She served as the deputy

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

of the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation between 1985 and 1986. Kumar completed his

matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term ''matriculation'' is seldom used no ...

in Lamington School and

pre-university course According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education. Universal basic education Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...

in science PC Jabin College in Hubli. He earned bachelor's degree in arts from Kadasiddeshwar Arts College, affiliated to the

Karnatak University Karnatak University (KUD) is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Dharwad, Karnataka, India. KUD was officially established in 1950 through the Karnatak University Act, 1949, passed by the legislature of t ...

, and in

Laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

from JSS Law college, both in Hubli. Kumar joined the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,, ) is an Indian right-wing politics, right-wing, Hindutva, Hindu nationalist volunteer paramilitary organisation. It is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar ( ...

(RSS) in 1973 and took part in the movement started by

Jayaprakash Narayan Jayaprakash Narayan Srivastava (; 11 October 1902 – 8 October 1979), also known as JP and ''Lok Nayak'' (Hindi for "People's leader"), was an Indian politician, theorist and Indian independence activist, independence activist. He is mai ...

the following year. He was jailed in the Hubli sub-jail for a period of over 40 days during the emergency.

Politics

Ananth Kumar was a member of RSS' student wing, the

Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is a student organization in India, registered as a Non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1949. It's a significant student union with over 5 million members, making it one of the largest student or ...

(ABVP). He was elected as the State Secretary of the ABVP. He later became its National Secretary in 1985. In 1987, he 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. Ananth Kumar was elected from Bangalore South Lok Sabha constituency to the

11th Lok Sabha The 11th Lok Sabha was constituted after April–May 1996 general elections. The result of the election was a hung parliament, which would see three Prime Ministers in two years and force the country back to the polls in 1998. Atal Bihari Vajpa ...

in 1996. He was re-elected and was inducted into the Second Vajpayee ministry. In 1999, he was re-elected to a third consecutive term and became a cabinet minister in the

National Democratic Alliance The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

government. He handled various ministries like Tourism, Sports & Youth Affairs, Culture, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation. Ananth Kumar became the President of the

state unit of BJP in 2003. It became the single largest party in the Legislative Assembly and won the majority number of Lok Sabha seats in 2004 in Karnataka. In 2004, he was appointed National General Secretary of the BJP. On 26 May 2014, Kumar was appointed Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers in the cabinet of the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the 2016 reshuffle, he was given the additional charge of

Parliamentary Affairs ''Parliamentary Affairs'' is a British peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal. Founded in 1947, it focuses on the government and politics of the United Kingdom, and also covers parliamentary systems across the world. It is published by the Ox ...

Lok Sabha electoral performance

Governance

When Ananth Kumar was minister of Chemicals and fertilizers, he worked to reduce the prices of coronary stents that would help heart patients to an average benefit of close to a lakh. As the minister for chemicals and fertilizers, Kumar implemented 100% mandatory neem-coating of

urea Urea, also called carbamide (because it is a diamide of carbonic acid), is an organic compound with chemical formula . This amide has two Amine, amino groups (–) joined by a carbonyl functional group (–C(=O)–). It is thus the simplest am ...

, in a move that was expected to save 6,500 crore annually in government subsidy or about 10,000 in total, by stopping diversion for industrial usage, apart from additional benefit of slowing the release of nitrogen, thus reducing the overall consumption. Ananth Kumar mandated price reduction by 69% on Knee Implants- from 1.5 to 2.5 lakh to the new price of 54,500. Under his guidance, number of Jan ''Aushadhi Kendras'' increased to over 4300 all over India (as on 1 November 2018) from 89 in May 2014. He launched Suvidha – Bio-degradable & environment friendly sanitary pads at just 2.50 per piece from 5 June 2018, on the occasion of International women's day (8 Mar 2018). He launched an initiative to revive 6 closed fertilizer plants with over 48,000 cr investment, along with coal and oil & natural gas ministry. Ananth Kumar signed an agreement for an International airport in

and took steps to improve the facilities in the HAL airport as the civil aviation minister in the Vajpayee government. Ananth Kumar formulated a transport policy in which cities with more than 10 lakh people would have metros. He had worked for the approval of the

Bengaluru Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Metro project by the Vajpayee cabinet. Ananth Kumar, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley were called "Delhi-4" or "D4" under the leadership of veteran L.K Advani, as they were based in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

and took care of various responsibilities in the party. He played his part in passing the GST (Goods and Services Tax) bill in July 2017. When NDA did not have a sufficient majority, Shri Ananth Kumar had convinced the other legislators regarding the importance of GST (Goods and Services Tax) to launch the bill. In 1998 Shri Ananth Kumar launched www.raktadan.org/ and www.ananth.org. He became the first Indian MP to launch his own website to serve his constituency. He was known as the

Face of

. Whenever representatives from

from any party came to him in

, he would contact the concerned officials and do everything he could to resolve their issues.

Personal life

Social work

He along with his wife, Tejaswini, founded Adamya Chethana Foundation, a nonprofit organisation for social service. It was setup in 1998 in memory of Girija Shastry, mother of Ananth Kumar. It supports underprivileged children with food in schools through the

Midday Meal Scheme The Mid Day Meal Scheme, officially PM-POSHAN, is a mandatory free school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional status of school-age children nationwide. The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in g ...

. About 2,00,000 meals are served daily. He launched the initiative Green

1:1 as part of his larger initiative Sasyagraha, to achieve 1 tree per human ratio, from the current 7 humans per tree as against the ideal 7 trees per human per research by IISc. EcoChetana initiative was to promote GreenLifeStyle in the state of

. As part of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) Ananth Kumar had adopted the Ragihalli village. He introduced Arogya Chetana Mediclaim group insurance facility for schoolchildren inaugurated by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

Death

On 12 November 2018 he died due to pancreatic cancer and complications. He was survived by his wife, Tejaswini, and his two daughters, Aishwarya and Vijeta.

References

External links

Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website

Official website of Ananth Kumar

Adamya Chetana Trust
, - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Kumar, Ananth 1959 births 2018 deaths Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Karnataka Lok Sabha members from Karnataka India MPs 1996–1997 India MPs 1998–1999 India MPs 1999–2004 India MPs 2004–2009 India MPs 2009–2014 India MPs 2014–2019 Politicians from Bengaluru Kannada people Indian Hindus Karnatak University alumni Narendra Modi ministry Deaths from cancer in India Indian people imprisoned during the Emergency (India) Culture ministers of India Civil aviation ministers of India Tourism ministers of India Members of the Cabinet of India