Know your minister | DV Sadananda Gowda - Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers

Karnataka MP DV Sadananda Gowda is the new cabinet minister for chemicals and fertilizers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Gowda retained his MP seat from Bengaluru North constituency. He won against Congress Krishna Byre Gowda with a margin of close to 1.45 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

He is now a prominent face in national politics. From a BJP party member to cabinet minister, Gowda’s rise is quite significant.

The 66-year-old lawyer started his political journey from Jan Sangh in the 80's. He became a member of BJP after the split of Janata Party.

Gowda was elected to the Karnataka legislative assembly in 1994 and 1999 from Dakshin Kannada. He was first elected to the 14th Lok Sabha in 2004, when he defeated Congress veteran Veerappa Moily.

In the 2014 Modi cabinet, Gowda held three portfolios. First as minister for railways, then minister of law and then minister for statistics and programme implementation since 2016.

Gowda was also the Karnataka state BJP president between 2006 and 2010. He served as the 20th chief minister of Karnataka between 2011 and 2012 when BS Yeddyurappa had to quit due to graft allegations.

While Gowda is held in high regard by the people in Karnataka, his time as the Minister of Statistics courted controversy.

Gowda’s ministry came under scanner when two members of National Statistics Commission (NSC), PC Mohanan and JV Meenakshi, resigned over the row on National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) unemployment report.

According to Mohanan, the government failed to release the Annual Employment Survey for 2017-18 that NSC had approved. The report pegged unemployment rates at a 45-year high. It was one of the reasons behind his resignation, he had said.