Union Cabinet hails Ananth's service to nation

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday expressed profound sorrow at the demise of Chemicals and Fertilisers and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H N Ananth Kumar.

A special meeting of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed a resolution that placed on record its appreciation of Kumar's services to the nation in different capacities.

“The Cabinet noted that in his passing away, the nation has lost an experienced leader,” an official statement said. The Cabinet also observed a two-minute silence in his memory and extended heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.

The condolence resolution passed by the Cabinet also noted his rise in politics from a student activist to being a minister in the Union Cabinet and him as a “key strategist” of the BJP.

“It was under his stewardship that the party expanded in Karnataka and eventually formed a government of its own. He was the national general secretary of the party and the member secretary of its Parliamentary Board,” the resolution said.

“In 1996, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bengaluru South for the first time. In his subsequent term as an MP in 1998, he became the youngest minister in the Vajpayee Cabinet and was appointed Minister for Civil Aviation,” the resolution said. He continued to represent the constituency till date, for the sixth time, it said.

“In his long political career, he had held the portfolios of Tourism; Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports; Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation; Rural Development. He had also been chairman and member of several parliamentary Committees,” it said.

The Cabinet hailed Kumar as an active social worker who was involved, through his NGOs, in undertaking many social service projects such as providing nutritious mid-day meal to underprivileged school children with government support.

It noted his initiative of running a mobile unit fitted with educational gadgets covering different schools situated in slums of Bengaluru, adopting government schools to provide drinking water and other facilities and running vocational training programmes for the underprivileged, especially girls and women.

“He also launched an initiative called 'Green Bengaluru 1:1', which aims to increase the green cover in Bengaluru by planting one crore saplings for taking 'tree-to-person' ratio to at least one in Bengaluru,” the resolution said.