Moily begins his first innings as Cabinet minister

This time, Moily,  70, chose Chikkaballapur from where he had never fought an election. As the Congress announced his candidature, Opposition parties considered him an easy target as he was an outsider to the Chikkaballapur constituency .

Even the then sitting MP, R L Jalappa, was not with him for  campaigning. Yet, Moily made it to the Lok Sabha. His image as a national leader was a plus point. He banked on the programmes, including common entrance tests, that he had launched as chief minister to woo Chikkaballapur voters.  He assured the public that he would get all pending projects in the constituency cleared if he was elected.

Ever since the UPA came to power in New Delhi in 2004, he has been an active Congressman in the capital. The UPA government appointed him chairman of the second Administrative Reforms Commission and also made him chairman of the Congress party’s media cell.  He also headed a committee to look into the future challenges of the party.
He has been loyal to the Gandhi family throughout his career. In the 1970s, when the state unit of the party split, he stood with Indira Gandhi.

In 1984, C Byre Gowda had accused Moily, then in the Opposition, of inducing him to defect to the Congress-I. Gowda had claimed that he had recorded the conversation in which Moily offered him a bribe. Later, Moily was exonerated by the Justice N D Venkatesh Commission.

Moily is  from Marpadi, a village in Moodabidri in Dakshina Kannada. He began his career as an advocate in Karkala fighting for exploited tenants and farmers. Within a short period, he earned the goodwill of the farming community and got into politics. He was first elected to the Assembly in 1972. He was  minister of  Education, Industries, Law, Finance, Planning and Culture. He presented state budget six times.

After he stepped down as chief minister in 1994, he was more active in literary circles than politics. His Sri Ramayana Mahanveshanam in five volumes  has been translated into Hindi. Its  Tamil version is under translation. He is working on an epic centred on Draupadi. He is married to Malathi, and has three daughters and one son.
DH News Service