The 55-year-old Anant Kumar who defeated former UIDAI chairman and Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani by a huge margin of 2.27 lakh votes to retain the Bangalore South parliamentary seat for the sixth time is one of the most visible faces of BJP in Karnataka.
Known for his strong organisational skills, Kumar, a law graduate, has previously held ministerial portfolios such as Civil Aviation, Tourism, Sports & Youth Affairs, Culture, Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation in the earlier governments formed by the National Democratic Alliance since 1998.
Kumar, who began his public life with the Akhila Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, was a popular and influential student union leader in Karnataka, who later became the National Secretary of the student wing of BJP in 1985.
After joining BJP in 1985, Kumar has risen through the ranks of the saffron party and was nominated as the head of state youth wing. He was appointed National Secretary of BJP in 1995.
Kumar got elected to Lok Sabha in 1996 for the first time from Bangalore South and has not looked back since then.