BENGALURU: Veteran BJP leader and former minister Ramachandra Gowda is set to bid goodbye to electoral politics. He will, however, continue in active politics serving his party. Gowda, who is serving his 5th term as a member of the Legislative Council, has already conveyed his decision to BJP national president Amit Shah.
The present term of Gowda, representing the Bengaluru Graduates’ Constituency is set to end in June 2018 and he has conveyed his decision not to contest any election after that. Sensing the prevailing mood in the Modi-Shah regime in BJP, where the old guard are being eased out from active roles, 79-year-old Gowda is said to have preferred a honourable exit by voluntarily conveying his decision to stay away from electoral politics.
“I have had a long stint as an MLC for five terms in a row. I am keen to make way for young leaders to emerge. I have requested our national president Amit Shah to nominate a young, dynamic candidate for my constituency in the next election,” Ramachandra Gowda told Express.
Gowda, who joined RSS in 1953, started his political career in 1970 and became the first corporator from Jana Sangh, the earlier avatar of the present day BJP, in the then Bangalore City Corporation(BCC). He was the Medical Education Minister in the B S Yeddyurappa government and quit the ministry in 2010 when his name figured in the Medical Colleges recruitment scam. The High Court later gave him a clean chit.