BENGALURU: For the last four decades, the name of Union minister HN
Ananth Kumar was synonymous with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP's) national leadership.
A distinct achievement, Kumar is perhaps the sole MP from
Karnataka who became a Union minister three times and the only other person apart from former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and Lok Sabha opposition leader Mallikarjun Kharge to remain in national political limelight till the end.
With little or no community support, Kumar carved his own space in the national political arena and displayed his political grit to remain in active politics even as his contemporaries and "mentors" like LK Advani, Venkaiah Naidu and others were sidelined.
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Born in a middle class family on July 22, 1959, Kumar graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from KS Arts College in Hubbali, affiliated to the Karnataka University, and later completed his law degree (LLB) from JSS law college, Mysore University.
His ambitious attitude and shrewd political sense propelled him on to the fast track of political growth and saw an unprecedented growth in national politics.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over Ananth Kumar's demise.
He played a key role during the emergency period as part of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), opposing the Indira Gandhi regime, and was incarcerated.
Kumar grew from strength to strength and became the national secretary for the BJP at the age of 36.
He was one of the youngest members of Parliament (MP) elected from Bangalore South in 1996, at the age of 37, and never looked back.
Kumar continued to represent the constituency, without a single loss, for five terms and became a union minister all the three times when the BJP led national democratic alliance (NDA) came to power.
In 1998, he was inducted into the Union cabinet headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the minister for civil aviation and was instrumental in the signing of the MoU for the Bengaluru international airport. Kumar was the youngest cabinet minister in the Vajpayee cabinet.
In 2004, with the NDA out of power, he became the national general secretary of the BJP and held that post ever since.
During the UPA rule, Kumar was perhaps the second-in-command to BJP co-founder LK Advani and then party president
Rajnath Singh.
At the same time, he was the party in-charge of states Bihar and Madhya Pradesh and contributed to the party's victory in both the state's respective assembly elections.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kumar adapted himself to the "new style" of functioning despite being identified from the Advani camp and became a key player in the Modi cabinet.
During the cabinet reshuffle, Kumar was given the responsibility of parliamentary affairs which proved vital to display his political astuteness when negotiating the recent no-confidence motion moved against the Modi government.
Ananth Kumar is survived by wife Tejaswini and daughters Aishwarya and Vijetha.
Tejaswini Murthy heads the second largest non-governmental organisation (NGO) after ISCKON in providing midday meals in Karnataka and other parts of the country.
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