Ananth Kumar. Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar died on Monday at a private hospital in Bengaluru due to multiple organ failure, a BJP spokesman said. He was 59. Kumar was widely regarded as an able political organiser who helped build the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka to expand the party's reach in the country's south.
“Kumar passed away at around 3 a.m. at Shankara Cancer Hospital three weeks after he was admitted on return from the US on October 21,” party’s state unit spokesman S. Shantaram said.
The Karnataka government declared a three-day mourning across the state and one-day public holiday for Monday as a mark of respect.
The departed leader was also the Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister in the NDA-led government since May 2014.
A six-time parliamentarian from the Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996, Ananth Kumar had been undergoing treatment for cancer in the UK and US since August.
“He first went to London after the monsoon session of Parliament in July-August and later shifted to a New York hospital.
“Cancer had spread to other parts of his body that resulted in his multi-organ failure and death,” said Shantaram.
The late Union Minister is survived by his widow Tejaswani, two daughters Aishwaraya and Vijayeta, younger brother Nand Kumar and younger sister Suhasini.
Kumar’s body was shifted to his residence and home-office at Basavangudi here.
“It will be kept in state at the National College grounds in Basavangudi for the public to pay homage till the last rites on Tuesday,” said the party official.
“The national flag will fly half-mast on public buildings across the state and all official engagements are cancelled till Wednesday,” the Congress-JD-S government here announced.
State and central government offices will remain closed on Monday as a tribute to Kumar, a state official said.
The Karnataka Education Department declared a holiday for all schools and colleges in the city on Monday as a mark of respect.
As news of Kumar’s demise spread across the city, hundreds of people, including party’s state unit leaders rushed to his residence to pay their last respects.
Several Bharatiya Janata Party’s leaders, including state unit chief B.S. Yeddyurappa and legislators R. Ashok and Suresh Kumar, visited Kumar’s house and condoled his untimely death.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Ministers and the party’s national leaders are expected to attend Kumar’s state funeral in the city on Tuesday,” Shantaram said.
President Ram Nath Kovind, Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Arun Jaitely, Nirmala Sitharaman and Nitin Gadkari mourned Kumar’s death and expressed condolence to the bereaved family.
Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, cabinet ministers of the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) and Congress coalition government joined BJP’s state unit leaders and cadres in condoling Ananth Kumar’s death.
Along with the party’s state unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and others, Kumar built the BJP across the southern state into a formidable alternative to the Congress and the Janata Dal.
Kumar’s organizational skills and proficiency in Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and English caught the attention of the party’s top leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, who made him a BJP national General Secretary at a young age.
“Kumar rose from the ranks to the national level in the BJP and the government, first as a student leader and later as an able party organiser,” BJP Karnataka spokesman S. Shantaram said.
He had another ability — winning friends across the political class.
An urban face of the BJP, the 59-year-old Kumar was a six-time parliamentarian from the high-profile Bengaluru South Lok Sabha constituency since 1996.
He became a Union Minister at a young age (37) in the Vajpayee’s governments of 1998-99 and 1999-2004.
Kumar again became a Union Minister in May 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave him the Chemicals and Fertilisers portfolio and, later, the Parliamentary Affairs portfolio.
In 2014, he defeated Congress star candidate and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who entered the political arena after resigning as Chairman of the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIADA).
Kumar’s tryst with politics began in college days during the 1980s when he was elected as the state and national secretary of the Akhila Bharatiya Vidhya Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Sangh Parivar.
He was associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as an organiser at Hubli-Dharwad in the state’s northwest region before joining the BJP in 1988.
Kumar was among those who helped the BJP to take power in Karnataka on its own in 2008.
Born into a middle-class Brahmin family in Bengaluru on July 22, 1959, Kumar went to school in the city and joined college at Hubli when his father H.N. Narayan Shastry, a railway employee, was transferred to the northwest town about 400 km from here. His mother Girja, was a homemaker.
Kumar graduated in Arts from K.S. Arts College and in Law from J.S.S. Law College at Hubli with B.A. and LL.B degrees from Karnataka University in Dharwad.
Kumar was the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and became its national secretary before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections.
He was also the party’s state unit president in 2003 and contributed to making the BJP a powerful opposition after the 2004 elections. (IANS)