India News | Youth Wing Leader to Cabinet Minister, Reddy to Seek Second Term in Parliament
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy, who was tapped for a BJP ticket, cut his teeth in politics as a youth wing leader in the then Janata Party and has remained close to his roots in south India.
New Delhi, Mar 2 (PTI) Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy, who was tapped for a BJP ticket, cut his teeth in politics as a youth wing leader in the then Janata Party and has remained close to his roots in south India.
Born in a middle class farmer family, Reddy holds the portfolios of culture, tourism and development of the northeastern region (DoNER) and is the sitting Member of Parliament from Secunderabad in Telangana.
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The ruling BJP on Saturday named 34 Union ministers including Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, and Smriti Irani in the first list of 195 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
It also announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi.
The Union ministers fielded by the BJP include Mansukh Mandaviya, Jitendra Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Gajendra Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav, G Kishan Reddy, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Arjun Munda.
Reddy in a post on X thanked the party leadership for his nomination.
"I would like to thank Hon'ble PM Shri @narendramodi ji, @BJP4India President Adarniya Shri @JPNadda ji, the party leadership, and the people for reaffirming their confidence and faith in me, nominating me for the Secunderabad Lok Sabha candidacy. I seek continued support and blessings from the constituents of Secunderabad in representing you all & serving Maa Bharati," he wrote.
Reddy was elected an MP in the 17th Lok Sabha from Secunderabad Constituency.
"He won with a margin of 62,144 votes over his nearest rival. He was earlier a three-time MLA and BJP Floor leader in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Assembly," according to BJP Telangana website.
The minister is also the present state chief of Telangana BJP.
Born in 1964, Reddy is affectionately called 'Kishananna' by people, and despite his busy schedule as a minister, he continues to make his presence felt in his home constituency and in Telangana.
He intensely campaigned during the last Telengana assembly polls, shuttling between Delhi and the southern state.
Reddy was also the face of the government in several important events held last year under the culture and tourism tracks meets of the G20 under India's year-long presidency of the multinational bloc.
Last August, Reddy told reporters on the sidelines of a G20 event in Varanasi that the NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership will score a hat-trick and return to power in 2024 with more seats.
Interacting with reporters after briefing media on the G20 culture group's meeting, Reddy had also taken a dig at opposition bloc INDIA and called it an "opportunist alliance."
"The country does not benefit from such an alliance, and the country gets harmed with such an alliance," the minister had then said.
Reddy started his political career as a leader of the youth wing of the Janata Party in 1977, according to Telangana BJP website.
Groomed under the leadership of Jayaprakash Narayan, the socialist flagbearer of the fight against corruption and Emergency, Reddy joined the BJP upon its inception in 1980.
The MP is known to be a man with calm demeanour and very close to his cultural roots.
"He earned a special niche for himself in the hearts and minds of people by foregrounding their aspirations and grievances and making sincere endeavours in anchoring them," says his description on the website.
Gangapuram Kishan Reddy, widely known as G Kishan Reddy, was "born in a middle-class farmers' family in backward Ranga Reddy district," it says.
Reddy "rejuvenated the Telangana movement by conducting Telangana Poru Yatra for 25 days during which he addressed 333 meetings," the website says.
As president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morch, he founded World Youth Council against Terrorism (WYCAT) an apolitical organisation to fight terrorism across the world, it said.
Since July 2021, Reddy has been serving as the Union minister for Tourism, Culture and DoNER.
Several important policies have been announced and important decision made with him at the helm of affairs.
Announcing the list, BJP National General Secretary Vinod Tawde said the party is confident that it would form the government for the third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a much bigger mandate.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)