Reddy was the face of the government in many key G20 culture and tourism events last year under India's presidency of the multinational bloc.
Telangana BJP state president G Kishan Reddy. (X)
Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy 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 family of farmers, 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.
The ruling BJP on Saturday, 2 March, 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.
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 to 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 Telangana.
He intensely campaigned during the 2023 Telangana 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,” the minister had then said.
Reddy started his political career as a leader of the youth wing of the Janata Party in 1977.
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 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,” the website said.
Gangapuram Kishan Reddy, widely known as G Kishan Reddy, was “born in a middle-class farmers’ family in backward Ranga Reddy district,” it said.
Reddy “rejuvenated the Telangana movement by conducting Telangana Poru Yatra for 25 days during which he addressed 333 meetings,” the website added.
As president of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morch, he founded the 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.
(Disclaimer: The headline, subheads, and intro of this report along with the photos may have been reworked by South First. The rest of the content is from a syndicated feed, and has been edited for style.)
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