'I have decided not to continue in electoral politics'

Hassan: Senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Wednesday announced that he has decided to retire from electoral politics.

The announcement made by the former union minister, who is currently a Member of the Lok Sabha from Bangalore North, is significant coming ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“I have decided not to continue in electoral politics. For 30 years my party has given me everything. After B S Yediyurappa (veteran BJP leader and former CM) I’m the number one beneficiary in the party,” Gowda said in response to a question on whether he would be the state BJP president once again.

Speaking to reporters here, he said, “I have been in politics for 30 years — 10 years as MLA, 20 years as MP, one year as Chief Minister, for one-and-a-half years as leader of opposition (in Legislative Council), five years as deputy leader of opposition in the assembly, four-and-a-half years as party president, and for seven years I have been a minister in the union cabinet under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” “If a politician is not happy after all this, he is not a true politician, he is selfish,” he said.

In June, Gowda had urged the party’s top brass to counter speculation that 13 incumbent BJP MPs, including himself, would not get party tickets for the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for next year, while seemingly expressing his frustration about the party doing little in this regard.
He had also recently tried to call out the party for not consulting its state leaders before forging an alliance with the JD(S), and also had lamented about the delay in appointing a leader of opposition in the Karnataka assembly.

Gowda had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers in July 2021. Besides being the chemicals and fertilisers minister in the Narendra Modi government, Gowda has also held portfolios such as Railways, Law, and Statistics and Programme Implementation.