Devaragunda Venkappa Sadananda Gowda (born 18 March 1953) is an Indian politician and was the 20th Chief Minister of Karnataka and is currently the Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation in the Government of India. He previously served as Minister of Law and Justice shifted from the Ministry of Railways in the cabinet reshuffle of 5 July 2016. He is a member of the 16th Lok Sabha representing the Bangalore North constituency.
Party: Bharatiya Janata Party
Spouse: Datty Sadananda (m. 1981)
Office: Member of the Lok Sabha since 2014
Education: Vaikunta Baliga College of Law
Parents: Smt Kamala, Venkappa Gowda
Early life
Sadananda Gowda was born in 1953 to Venkappa Gowda and Kamala of Mandekolu Village in Sulya taluk Karnataka.His birth village is very close to Kerala border.
Gowda graduated in Science from the St. Philomena College, Puttur and then went on to obtain his degree in law at Udupi Vaikunta Baliga College of Law. He became active in student politics during this period and was elected as the General Secretary of the Students Union of the Law College. Subsequently, he became the District General Secretary of the ABVP
In 1976, he started practising law at both Sulya and Puttur. He was a public prosecutor for a brief period in Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district but resigned his job to concentrate on his political career.
Political career
He began his political career as a member of the Jan Sangh. He was President of the party’s Sulya Assembly segment. After the split of the Janata Party, he became a member of the BJP. Later on, he served the BJP as Dakshina Kannada BJP Yuva Morcha President, Dakshina Kannada BJP Vice-President, State BJP Yuva Morcha Secretary (1983–88), State BJP Secretary (2003–04) and National Secretary of the party (2004).
Sadananda Gowda was elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1994 and 1999 from the Puttur Assembly seat in Dakshina Kannada. He became Deputy Leader of the Opposition in his second term as MLA. He has served in various committees of the Karanataka State legislature including the Cell for preparing Draft Bill on prohibiting Atrocities on Women, Karnataka, the Committee of Energy, Fuel and Power, and the Committee for Public Undertaking. He was nominated as the President of the Public Accounts Committee in 2003.
He was elected to the 14th Lok Sabha in 2004 from the Mangalore Lok Sabha seat,defeating Veerappa Moily of the Indian National Congress by a margin of 32,314 votes. In 2009, the party shifted him to the Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency.In parliament, he was on the Committee on Science & Technology, Environment & Forests. In the 14th Lok Sabha, he was a member of the Committee on Commerce. Government of India had appointed him as Director of Coffee Board during January 2005.
In 2006, Sadananda Gowda was appointed as President of Karnataka State BJP. He earned National prominence being the President when BJP won an assembly election for the first time in South India in May 2008.
He was elected to the 15th Lok Sabha from Udupi Chikmagalur Constituency before he became the Chief Minister of Karnataka.
Sadananda Gowda was chosen as the Chief Minister of Karnataka in August 2011 following the resignation of his mentor B.S. Yeddyurappa in an illegal mining case. Handpicked by Yeddyurappa, he was the second ethnic Tuluva Chief Minister of Karnataka after Veerappa Moily. As Chief minister, he strived hard to improve the image of his party that had been tarnished due to allegations of corruption. He introduced various schemes such as Sakaala, aimed at providing time bound services at government offices. But within a few months of becoming Chief Minister, he fell out with Yeddyurappa and was unable to unite the various factions of the party. In July 2012, he was asked to resign to make way for Jagadish Shettar when dissident activities in the party peaked.
After suffering a big loss in the May 2013 elections, BJP elected DV Sadananda Gowda as the opposition leader of legislative council in Karnataka.
On 26 May 2014, Sadananda Gowda was sworn in as a cabinet minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s newly elected government. He was put in charge of the Ministry of Railways. He presented his maiden budget on 8 July 2014.