Shobha Karandlaje from Karnataka ready for second stint in Modi 3.0

Bengaluru: Senior BJP leader from Karnataka, Shobha Karandlaje, is all set for a new role as a central minister in the new NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

She held the portfolio of Minister of State (MoS) for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in the previous BJP government at the Centre.

Shobha won the Bengaluru North Lok Sabha seat with a record margin of 2.59 lakh votes, defeating her nearest rival, M.V. Rajeev Gowda, a former professor from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bengaluru. She garnered 56.3 per cent votes against Gowda’s 41.5 per cent.

Shobha polled 9.86 lakh votes, while Gowda received 7.26 lakh votes. Shobha was asked to contest from Bengaluru North at the last minute as she faced stiff resistance in the Udupi-Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha seat, which she represented in the 2019 general election.

57-year-old Shobha is a close confidant of former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa. She served as the Minister of Rural Development, Minister of Food and Civil Supplies, and Minister of Energy in Karnataka. During her tenure, the Ministry of RDPR in Karnataka was awarded as the No. 1 state in India in Rural Development and Panchayat Raj.

Shobha is unmarried and has been associated with the RSS since her early years. She has a postgraduate degree in Social Work from Mangaluru University and a Master of Arts in Sociology from Karnataka State Open University.

Shobha is known as a Hindutva firebrand leader. She served as a member of the Standing Committee on Energy, a member of the Committee on Empowerment of Women, and contributed as a member of the Consultative Committee under the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Earlier, she had quit the party to join the KJP launched by B.S. Yediyurappa but later returned to the BJP with him.