Jagadish Shettar is going to be the next Karnataka Chief Minister. Past he was serving as the Minister of Rural Development, Panchayat Raj, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation in the Government of Karnataka. Earlier, he was the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly during 2008-2009.
Here we present a short Biography of Jagadish Shivappa Shettar
Born Dec 17, 1955, in Kerur village in Bagalokot district, Jagadish Shettar was educated in Hubli in Dharwad district, about 400 km north of Bangalore.
Hubli and Dharwad are twin cities, 20 km apart. While Dharwad is the headquarters of the district administration and a centre of education with two universities, Hubli is a major commercial centre.
His parents were Sri. S.S.Shettar and Smt. Basavanemma. His father S S Shettar, a senior activist of the Jana Sangh, was elected five times to the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation and became the first Jana Sangh Mayor of Hubli-Dharwad. His uncle Sadashiv Shettar was the first Jana Sangh leader in the South to get elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from Hubli City in 1967. Shettar holds BCom and LLB degrees and was a practicing lawyer for 20 years at the Hubli Bar. He married Smt. Shilpa and the couple have 2 sons – Prashant and Sankalp.
Shettar began his public life with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and participated actively in all its activities before becoming an active member of theRashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
In 1990, he became the President of Hubli Rural Unit of the BJP and in 1994, the Dharwad District Unit President of the party. He was elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1994 and has been reelected as Member of the Legislative Assembly from Hubli rural constituency for four successive terms. In 1996, he became the BJP State Secretary and in 1999, he was chosen as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly following the defeat of the BJP in the state elections. Shettar was the Leader of Opposition when S.M. Krishna was the Chief minister and effectively discharged his duties.
In 2005, he was appointed as the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Later, he went on to become the Revenue Minister in the JD(S)-BJP coalition government headed by HD Kumaraswamy in 2006. In 2008, following the BJP victory in Karnataka assembly elections, Shettar was elected as the Speaker of the Karnataka legislative assembly. However, he resigned from this post in 2009 and was inducted in to the cabinet of B.S. Yeddyurappa as minister for Rural development and Panchayat Raj. In 2011, following the resignation of B.S. Yeddyurappa, Shettar emerged as a major contender to the post of Chief Minister . However, he was defeated by D.V. Sadananda Gowda in the election to select the Leader of the BJP Legislature party.
As one of the most influential leaders of north Karnataka region, he has been associated with many reforms including the Khalasa Banduri project, construction of suvarna vidhana soudha in Belgaum, establishment of South western railways headquarters to Hubli Dharwad etc.
In First week of July 2012, The Bharatiya Janata Party high command decided to replace Sadananda Gowda with Jagadish Shettar as the Karnataka Chief Minister. Shettar will be sworn in as Chief Minister of Karnataka on 16th July 2012.
Shettar, hails from north Karnataka and belongs to the politically powerful Lingayat community, which is generally believed to be backing the BJP since the 1990s after feeling neglected by the Congress.
The community has a large presence in northern Karnataka.
Ironically, Shettar’s caste that has now propelled him to the top post went against him a year back when BJP’s first chief minister in the state, B.S. Yeddyurappa, was forced to quit over corruption charges.
Yeddyurappa is also a Lingayat, the caste group that makes up for 17 percent of Karnataka’s 65 million population.
Fearing Shettar may emerge as a rival power centre, Yeddyurappa scuttled his bid and insisted that Gowda, a Vokkaliga, another politically influential caste group, should succeed him.
In May 2008, when Yeddyurappa took over as chief minister, he had refused to take Shettar in the cabinet and forced him to accept the speaker’s post.
Shettar reluctantly took up the job. But after the first rebellion against Yeddyurappa led by mining barons the Reddy brothers, who projected Shettar as the chief minister, Yeddyurappa bought peace with him by taking him into the cabinet in 2009.
Since then, he has handled the rural development and panchayati raj portfolio.
Shettar, a commerce and law graduate and an advocate for over 20 years, is a four time assembly member and comes from a family with strong ties to the BJP and its earlier avatar, the Jan Sangh.
Shettar was first elected to the assembly in 1994 from the Hubli rural constituency. He has retained the seat since then.
Fortune is smiling on Shettar because Yeddyurappa has come a full circle to bank on him after falling out with Gowda.
Yeddyurappa claims that Gowda had agreed to quit six months after taking over to make way for him. He also claims that BJP president Nitin Gadkari had promised to bring him back as chief minister if the court cleared him of mining bribery charges.
Though the high court quashed the Lokayukta (ombudsman) report indicting him for bribery in an illegal mining scam, the Supreme Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to probe the charges, putting paid to Yeddyurapa’s chances of regaining the chief minister’s chair.
With several other corruption and illegal land deals cases against him also piling up, the BJP central leaders were reluctant to make him the chief minister again.
An upset Yeddyurappa launched a strident campaign to oust Gowda.
Shettar will have a very short term now as the assembly’s term ends in May next year.
If the polls are advanced to December, as is widely speculated, Shettar may have time just to settle down in the chair before seeking another mandate.