With Kumaraswamy as a Minister, JD(S) first family returns to Centre after 28 years

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s new Council of Ministers has 13 Ministers from Southern India.

Five of the 13 Southern Ministers, including former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, are from Karnataka, BJP’s only bastion in the South, which delivered 19 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats to the NDA. The BJP won 17 seats and Kumaraswamy’s Janata Dal (Secular) won two.

In addition to Kumaraswamy, the Council of Ministers includes Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet. Shobha Karandlaje, who served as Union Minister of State in the previous Modi Government and former State Government Minister V. Somanna, both from BJP, also took the oath.

Joining the Narendra Modi 3.0 Cabinet, H.D. Kumaraswamy has finally secured a Central Ministerial berth, a position the JD(S) had not achieved since 1996 when Deve Gowda became Prime Minister. Kumaraswamy is Gowda’s younger son.

Standing out among the other NDA partners, Kumaraswamy, dressed in a traditional ‘panche’ (dhoti), has had a remarkable journey from Bengaluru to Delhi. What began as a political move to save the JD(S) from splitting in the early 2000s has now cemented the JD(S)’s future with the backing of the BJP.

The 64-year-old Vokkaliga leader has openly expressed his ambition to become the Agriculture Minister. By winning the Mandya LS seat by a margin of 2,84,620 votes, Kumaraswamy has not only reclaimed the JD(S)’s lost stronghold but also demonstrated that the party remains a significant player in Karnataka politics through its alliance with the BJP. Kumaraswamy defeated Venkataramane Gowda of the Congress by a margin of 2,84,620 votes.

Kumaraswamy’s pro-farmer and rural-friendly initiatives, such as farm loan waivers and the ‘gram vastavya’ project, earned him popularity during his tenure as the Chief Minister. He is a science graduate and his wife, Anitha, is a former MLA.